Some of the tests results I love to fol­low are those from The Poyn­ter Insti­tute. Their eye­track­ing stud­ies are some of the largest ever con­ducted in this space.

While their tests are pri­mar­ily done for, and funded by, major news­pa­pers, their stud­ies are incred­i­bly reveal­ing nonethe­less. For instance, they’ve tested how read­ers read sto­ries in three dif­fer­ent for­mats: tabloid-​​style (folded ver­ti­cally), broad­sheet (larger size, folded hor­i­zon­tally), and online.

Of course, my inter­est is cer­tainly focused on the online ver­sion. But their news­pa­per stud­ies are very reveal­ing in terms of what cap­tures people’s atten­tion, how they read, and how much of it they do read.

Their web­site has come out with five key find­ings. (Their full report is due out in a few more weeks from now.) But let’s take a closer look at these find­ings, and my inter­pre­ta­tion of what they mean for the web.

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Something’s been going on. Some­thing behind the scenes that you may not know about. Some­thing that’s been help­ing me increase the effec­tive­ness of my web­sites and blogs.

Right under your nose. Er, I mean finger.

As you know, I’m a fanat­i­cal tester. And I test con­stantly. But what you may not know is that, it is not only lim­ited to split-​​testing copy.

Well, let me let you in on a secret.

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