I was being a guinea pig for some usability testing today and we noticed something very interesting. The site we were testing was a traditional 3 column design i.e. left hand nav, content and then call to actions on the right hand side. As a user I completely ignored the right hand column.
Now this could just be me; I am known to be awkward at times but it got me thinking. I'm wondering with some of the popular sites such as facebook and google using the right hand column for advertising, if users are sub-consciously ignoring it.
As users we don't like to think to much - our brain has become adept to looking for patterns and following conventions to save time and find the information we need as quickly as possible. Thanks to in page advertising, maybe the right hand column is becoming something we ignore as it takes up unnecessary thinking time.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 25, 2009 and is filed under
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2 comments:
I was thinking about this yesterday when I saw a screen grab of the old facebook layout - they used to have ads on the left, in a column underneath the logo.
It looked totally different and struck me immediately... don't know what that means. It winds me right up when Tescos move things around, but they've obviously realised that keeping things fresh is the only way to maintain attention. or something.
Been thinking about this a little more. My first thoughts on this RHS blindness business was "oh no it's going to restrict design" BUT actually I've decided it may be a good thing. The right hand side could become the equivelent of the TV ad break. People can decide whether to buy into the ads or completely ignore them. Conventions provide clear paths for a user to follow. These in turn gives the user choice rather than feeling bombarded by information.
Perosnally, if I feel that I have chosen to view an advert, I'm probably more likely to buy into it.