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24 ways to impress your friends

Science!

Jon Tan Jon Tan

8 Comments

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iamkeir

Hey Jon – Merry Xmas. Enjoyed this read, I like explorative/conceptual bigger picture stuff like this. It’s refreshing food for thought.

Any idea how these concepts translate to other languages, particularly right-to-left reading? I wonder if it is as simple as a straight flip.

Best, Keir

Michael Kjeldsen

Cool (and very geeky) read! :-)

I do some front-end developing as well as copy writing and I was wondering, if you could optimize sentences according to this research.

In particular I’m pondering about the optimum ratio between saccades and fixations…:
- Is there a best practice/rule of thumb for how long the saccades should be?
- Are some word/letters used more for fixations than other, or are the fixations “placed” with certain distances between them?

Thank you in advance!

Chris

Very nice article! I’m convinced that spammers, or more specifically online advertising spammers, are leading the way in this field. Again. I’m certain they clock some of their checkboxes and I’m still receiving emails from their clients to this day.

Jarrett Holmes

Very interesting post! It’s interesting to learn about the way that peoples eyes scan different types of content online, from text to pics and videos of course. I’ve always been interested in heat maps and how they translate to more effective online marketing and sales. Of course, great copyrighting and offering value in your posts is fundamental. Thanks for the informative post!

Karen Walters

Incredible Post !! I came here accidently ! One of the best resource I found which explains use of science terms like saccades, fixations, scan paths and typesetting in web designing and developing field. It’ proves that science is mother of all techniques !

Trever Santora

Thanks for the nutritious read, John. I was up at Interlink, where you spoke about the affect type has on our mood. I got to give you props for the Enter the Dragon quote, but shoot, I really wanted to tell you about this research paper: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001002771000226X. Here we have two studies, in the lab and field, which show us hard-to-read typography increases retention rates by 14%. We’re talking Comic Sans. Italicized. Now, pardon my short exit, I’ve got to catch up on a few Christmas letters written in — what else — Comic Sans.

Henk

It is a pity that your post is already the last one of the 2012 serie. Nevertheless again a very interesting post.

Design is indeed very important and can control the eyes and clicks of your visitors on your website. Most of the times the shapes of the design can guide your visitor better to the preferred call to action than colors (colors that want the attention of the visitor are most of the time perceived as screaming).The use of subtle arrows in the design is a good way to do this.

Trever Santora

Thanks for the nutritious read, John. I was up at Interlink, where you spoke about the affect type has on our mood. I got to give you props for the Enter the Dragon quote, but shoot, I really wanted to tell you about this research paper: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001002771000226X. Here we have two studies, in the lab and field, which show us hard-to-read typography increases retention rates by 14%. We’re talking Comic Sans. Italicized. Now, pardon my short exit, I’ve got to catch up on a few Christmas letters written in — what else — Comic Sans.

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