Photographers know that the eye gaze direction of the person in a picture dictates the eye gaze direction of the person who’s looking at the picture. It’s in just about every book on photography ever published.

What does this mean for your website?

If you use pictures of people on your website, make sure they’re looking at something you want your visitors to look at as well.

Pictures of people looking straight into the camera bounce the viewer’s gaze right back. Sure, they draw people’s attention. But that in itself really doesn’t do anything for you, does it? Unless of course you prefer people to look at the pictures on your site rather than the ‘Buy now’ button. If that’s how you roll, be my guest.

Example 1: hair product ad

Most people instinctively prefer the bottom picture. It looks more natural than the slightly contrived sideways glance in the top picture. The heatmap however tells a different story. The top picture directs the viewer’s gaze to the brand name on the product. Hmm… which picture should I use in my campaign? That’s a no-brainer really, isn’t it?

Example 2: cute baby

If the baby looks straight ahead, people mainly focus on the baby’s face (”What a cutie!”). The text on the right doesn’t really get a lot of attention.

If the baby looks at the text, the visitors’ eye gaze pattern changes. The text gets a lot more attention. And so does the brand name in the bottom right…

For people who aren’t familiar with heatmaps: what you see is the result of eyetracking research that follows the eye gaze of people. The red zones indicate areas that were looked at by 80 to 100% of people. In this case, the research was done with 106 people by the Australian UsableWorld.

Example 3: banner with or without headshot?

The excellent site Which Test Won recently showed this example. Which banner got the biggest conversion rate?

You chose the banner without the headshot? Excellent choice. It got 65% more sign-ups than the other one.

Does that mean pictures of people don’t work in banners? That’s a going a bit too far. Look where the banner guy is looking. Wrong place. It would have been interesting to see a test with a version where the guy in the headshot looks at the call to action button…

Conclusion

Having people look straight into camera works fine for family snaps but not if you want to put the pictures on your website.

What else is important if you use pictures of people?

• Use real people. Eerily perfect models with teeth whiter than the driven snow raise suspicion rather than confidence.
• Avoid the clichés. “We’re an IT-company. Let’s use pictures of nerdy guys behind computers.” Actually, let’s not.
• Don’t forget to link the picture to your product or the message you want to convey.

Possible answers

• Couches
• Couches and chairs
• Anything you can park your behind in ™
• Furniture in general
• HR publications

The right answer

HR publications. That was easy, right?

What have we learned today?

• Think before you drink
• Don’t drink when you’re designing a web page
• Only use images that help the user

If you liked this article, you should also read

• Deciding when graphics will help (and when they won’t)
• Can you pick the right picture?
• No more smiling faces

Have you seen something silly or wonderful (or wonderfully silly) on a website? Let us know. Use our contact form or just mail us.

Question: which picture should you click?

Which picture should you click if you’re a citizen and which one if you’re a business owner on the website of the beautiful Flemish city of Oudenaarde?

Hint: it’s not the middle one. That one’s for ‘Visitors’. Obviously.

Answer

If you’re a citizen of Oudenaarde, you should click the picture on the left (’Inwoner’).

If you’re a business owner, you should click the picture on the right (’Ondernemen’).

The explanation:

• The picture on the left shows the town’s administrative center, where citizens can get answers to all their administrative questions.
• The picture on the right is a picture of the town’s main shopping street, the beating heart of the local economy.

You think a picture is worth a thousand words? Think again.

Avoid ‘quiz pages’

Apart from the questionable pictures it’s not a good idea to present people with web pages like that.

It makes people second-guess themselves:

• I live in Oudenaarde but I’m visiting the website. Does that automatically make me a visitor?
• Where should I click if I don’t live in Oudenaarde yet but I am moving there? I’m not a citizen yet but I’m not really a visitor either.
• What if I live in Oudenaarde but am looking for a walking trail?
• Et cetera ad infinitum.

In case you still don’t get it: web pages with choices like that are evil. Absolutely not done.

So don’t do it.

In our experience, people react negatively rather than positively to these smiley pictures. They think they’re fake. Regular people don’t relate to unnaturally white, unnaturally wide smiles. Customers aren’t fooled by these shiny pictures. They want a website that gets to the point. And they expect your pictures to be to the point too.  

Quiz: what are these companies trying to sell you?