About 80% of Attention Lands on the Left Half of a Page
About 80% of eye fixations on web pages land on the left half of the screen and 20% on the right (Nielsen Norman Group, 2017). In the 2010 version of the same research, the left half got 69%. The bias toward the left has grown stronger, not weaker.
What the research observed
Nielsen Norman Group tracked where people looked on a range of ordinary web pages and split the results by horizontal position. Attention concentrated on the left half, and in this study no participant scrolled horizontally. The researchers connect this to expectation: people look for things where they expect to find them, and on most sites the navigation, headings, and start of each line of text sit on the left.
A related eye-tracking study of alternating image and text layouts found the same starting point. Users began scanning on the left unless the content on the right sat noticeably higher on the page (Nielsen Norman Group, 2017).
What it means for a business website
Anything placed on the right side of a desktop layout starts with a disadvantage. That includes common choices on small business sites: a quote request form floated to the right of the headline, a phone number in a right-hand box, or a special offer beside the main text.
None of these will go completely unseen, but each one competes for the smaller 20% share. Content on the left gets looked at by default.
What to do
- Place your headline, the most important information, and your primary call to action center-left.
- Use the right side for secondary material that supports the main content.
- If something important has to sit on the right, give it more visual weight through size and contrast, and check whether visitors use it.
- Keep navigation in a conventional top or left position, where visitors already expect to find it.
Sources
- Fessenden. Horizontal Attention Leans Left. Nielsen Norman Group, 2017.
- Flaherty. Zigzag Image-Text Layouts Make Scanning Less Efficient. Nielsen Norman Group, 2017.