FPRA Annual Conference: Breakout 1A, Engaging Your Audience

The first breakout session of the morning is Engaging Your Audience: A Scientific Look at What Attract Attention led by Sara Quinn, Visual Journalism Faculty, The Poynter Institute. This session discussed design elements and what holds the readers attention.

The speaker discussed a study by the Poynter Institute examined reader habits. The study tracks what attracts and holds the reader’s attention—400 readers in 4 cities—by measuring eye stops. The study was very scientific—highly defined, specific, setting analyzed, etc. The study had a number of exciting findings including:

• Readers read more text online versus in tabloid.
• More online readers finish reading the story versus tabloid readers.
• Reading styles were defined as either methodical or scanning. Methodical readers used navigation in a very methodical manner versus scanners who did a lot of searches and didn’t necessarily read the whole article.
• Online readers are about 50 percent methodical and 50 percent scanners.
• When you’re designing a Web site, the speaker suggested that you include a search function as well as specific navigation functions.
• All readers read about 78 percent of the text in tabloid and online.
• Methodical readers read much more text than scanners.
• The speaker noted the study sessions (each city) were performed with that day’s newspaper, which varied by day and city. A second test was also performed (in each city) with the same information written three different ways to determine the best format. Each individual being tested had a one of the three versions of the information. Then they answered 20 questions about the information they read, and the test showed that an alternative story forms (a combination of pictures, charts, fonts, sectioned text in color boxes, etc.) got the best readership results in terms of the readers understanding the information.
• Hierarchy is very important, the largest headlines and photos (proportional to the page) get more attention and get read first.
• Online readers are attracted by directional devices.
• Color and live photos get a lot more attention than staged photos. In fact, readers tend to gloss over staged photos.
• Mug shots got very little attention.
• The speaker said, “content is king. Readers want information.”
• Briefs were more likely to be read if they include a picture even if it was a mug shot.
• A higher number of ads were clicked on versus editorial elements.
• Highly interactive elements—blogs, photo galleries, etc.—get some attention, but only a very small percentage of the total eye shots.
• Ads tend to be overlooked when in clumps.
• Bigger ads may not be better. A half-page ad sharing the page with other editorial content performed as well or better than a whole-page ad (with not editorial content).
• Color ads attracts attention better than black and white.
• Banner ads and small ads attract a lot of attention.