The First Two Screens Get 74% of Viewing Time
The second screen of a web page gets about 17% of visitors’ viewing time. Together, the first two screens get 74%, and the first three get 81% (Nielsen Norman Group, 2018). Everything below the third screen shares what is left, spread thinly across the rest of the page.
What the research observed
Nielsen Norman Group measured how viewing time was distributed down the length of web pages using eye tracking. People scrolled, but attention dropped sharply with each screen. The first screen received the largest share, the second a much smaller one, and each later screen less again.
The pattern follows from how people decide whether to keep going. Visitors scroll when what they have already seen suggests more value below. Each screen has to earn the next one, and some visitors stop at every step. By the third screen, most of the attention a page will receive has already been spent.
What it means for a business website
Section order is a priority decision, whether or not it was made deliberately. A common home page runs in this order: a large banner, a welcome message, the company history, a mission statement, and only then the services, reviews, and contact details. In that order, the sections a new customer needs most sit where attention is lowest.
Long pages are not a problem in themselves. The problem is putting low-value sections high and high-value sections low.
What to do
- List the sections on each key page and rank them by what a new visitor needs in order to decide to contact you.
- Put the top-ranked items in the first two screens: what you do, who it is for, proof such as reviews, and how to get in touch.
- Move company history, long biographies, and mission statements lower on the page or to an About page.
- Check scroll-depth reports in your analytics to see how far visitors reach on your most important pages.
Sources
- Fessenden. Scrolling and Attention. Nielsen Norman Group, 2018.