THE LATEST EYE-TRACKING MOVEMENT RESULTS

Siegfried Fogal was a pioneer in the study of eye movement and reading. He did extensive research and made some interesting discoveries about people and how they view their mail.

To begin with he learned that the average person scans the outer envelope in an almost zigzag pattern.

His research proved the following:

1. Recipient first check to see if the letter is addressed to them.

2. Next they observe the kind of postage paid or check the name or logo of the sender.

3. Then they read any message on the envelope.

4. F i n a l ll y, they move to the back of the envelope where they will read any continuing message before deciding to open the e n v e l o p e.

New research is underway to determine how the average person scans a piece of reading material. Sophisticated eye-tracking equipment is being used and shows that we read in an almost "E – pattern" as illustrated below:

We start to read the first few sentences of a piece of material and continue reading the first or perhaps the second line. If the piece is not too i n t e r e s t i n g.

O u r e y e s w i l l q u i c k l y s k i p d o w n t o the next section that may catch our attention, where we may pause to read for a moment or so, and then r e s u m e s c a n n i n g b e l o w t i l l t h e n e x t t h i n g catches our eye, which we might read for a while. If it intrigues us, we go back to the top to find what we may have missed earlier.

Because of changing reading habits of younger readers today, most articles are getting shorter. Even many newspaper items are bite sized to fit one page.

Also since most people only read 25% of any given material it is becoming more i m p o r t a n t for writers and art directors to make sure that the message is strong, easily absorbed and quickly understood.



THE LATEST EYE-TRACKING MOVEMENT RESULTS - To learn more about this author, visit Billy Sharma's Website.

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