Eye is drawn to

[Fiver]

-The upper right hand side of the page
-The brightest object on the page (contrast)
-The largest object on the page (relative size)
-The blinking object on the page (motion or colour change)
-Images over text
-High contrast simple images over complex imagery

true/false/unimportant?

[TGecho]

I am by no means an expert on all of this either, but here's my take.

>> The upper right hand side of the page
Cultural. Some languages are read right to left and so on.

>> The brightest object on the page (contrast)
Definitely. I always try to have a darkish (relatively) area around the rest of my site. This automatically helps direct the eye inwards.

>> The largest object on the page (relative size)
Yep, just don't make it too big or it will overwhelm the page.

>> The blinking object on the page (motion or colour change)
Yeah, but that's not necessarily a good thing. Especially avoid more than one thing moving/blinking.

>> Images over text
Yes.

>> High contrast simple images over complex imagery
Yes.

[Fiver]

yeah, so the last two are fairly obvious, but worth mentioning.

upper right - yes it's cultural, but for intents and purposes on the english speaking web, I'd say it's applicable. msgs you actually want the surfer to read, best spot for 'em.

brightest object - I've always had problems with this when the sites I'm making are supposed to be all glam for aolites. a dull page brings the back button, a bright page leaves no room for contrast.

relative size - I've often wondered if there are sizes that are optimal per audience style.

blinking object / animation - Two is one too many, you're right. One is infinitely better than none though, so the sweet spot there is pretty obvious. hopefully you've only got one thing you want your customers to click on :)

Coming as someone who has only really had to design pages for North America, can anyone point out non-applicable or the alternate versions for Europe? I know it's different country to country, but if you know what works for a specific country, that itself would be interesting.

And if there are any generals, like, Europeans in general like a more subdued colour style, or prefer to see a yahoo style dir on the front page, or anything really, that would be interesting too. Perhaps I'll split this and go ask that question in the European forum.

[BlobFisk]

Some interesting research findings on this from SURL have been published as part of their Criteria for optimal web design (designing for usability) [psychology.wichita.edu] paper.

HTH

[lorax]

I also wonder what the percentages are for the screen resolutions now as opposed to 3 years ago.

[redzone]

We've always discussed that the eye trains:
Left -> Right
Top -> bottom

I've always wondered why Google placed AdWords listings at the right side of the page, especially since they are 100% text..

Top Left would have much more impact, than Top Right according to the studies and experience I've read/had...

[phaze]

Nice link (optimal web design). Google's priority is delivering excellent search results, and I think they know that their search logic will produce better results than adwords, no matter how strict their editorial policy on adwords. Hence the lower visibility for ads.

...off to strip the fat from my home page.

[BlobFisk]

I also wonder what the percentages are for the screen resolutions now as opposed to 3 years ago.

Resolution......Site....Internet Average 
800 x 600.......54.4%...37.0%  
1024 x 768......36.2%...47.9%  
640 x 480........2.5%....1.3%  
1280 x 1024......2.5%....5.9%  
1152 x 864.......1.7%....2.9% 

These stats are for a large eComm site and are taken from Omniture.