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Study Shows People Ignore Generic Photos Online

Pete Hellmann

Blog #35 of 137

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December 30th, 2010 - 10:50 AM

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Study Shows People Ignore Generic Photos Online

Even the most ardent Internet supporters will acknowledge that most Web sites are a hodgepodge of poor design and cluttered content.

And so Jakob Nielsen, a Web site consultant and author of a number of books about design and user interface, has made it his personal mission to try to bring order to the tangled design of most sites. Mr. Nielsen’s weapons in the fight to clean up this mess include some eye-tracking software and research he chronicles on his blog.

For his latest cleaning project, Mr. Nielsen is going after images online.

In the past he has argued that large images annoy users because of the long load times, even with a high-speed Internet connection. Now, in a new study, he points out that the random or stock images on Web sites are completely ignored by users, add more clutter to the page and don’t necessarily help from a business standpoint.

His latest eye-tracking survey found that “big feel-good images that are purely decorative” are mostly ignored online, while stock photos or generic people are also intentionally disregarded. In contrast, when users know that a picture of a person is real they will engage with the image for extended periods of time.

The study becomes extremely interesting when its findings are applied to products sold online.

The entire article can be found at the NY Times.

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