Greg Edwards of Eyetools Research did a fascinating heatmap of a group of 19 new visitors viewing washingtonpost.com’s new front page to see what can be learned from its design.
He concluded that the main content area in the top half of the page has a good readable design. “It is heavily viewed and read (more so than some other news sites). Good use of line-spacing and white-space. People even scroll. Job well done!”
He also found that the bottom half of the page has ineffective line-height spacing and lack of white-space reduce reading. Most of the content is being missed and there is no consistent guidance of eyes to section headings. Opportunities to communicate value to visitors is greatly reduced in this area. We’ve seen other websites do a better job.”
