S8080 Blog

Here’s a really interesting piece of eye tracking work done by Jakob Nielsen (April 2006): F-Shaped pattern for reading online

The eye tracking study of 232 users found users often read web pages in an F shaped pattern:

• first users read in a horizontal movement across the page
• then they move down the page and read a second shorter horizontal movement
• then the users scan the content’s left side in a vertical movement.

These eye tracking heatmaps clearly show the F shaped pattern.

Source: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html