EyeTrack research and The Poynter Institute for Media Studies have been linked for nearly 20 years. There has never been a more exciting, challenging and demanding time than now for the media to learn from the EyeTrack studies and find practical applications.

EyeTrack07 is the most comprehensive, all-inclusive and revealing of Poynter’s studies. It confirms much of what we already knew, and pushes us to make intelligent decisions, especially as we analyze print and online reading habits.

At Poynter, our interest in how readers react to what we put on the page (and now the screen) dates back to 1983, when we became curious about how newspaper readers reacted to color. For many newspapers worldwide, color use was just beginning, and publishers who invested heavily on new rotary presses felt an obligation to use color everywhere, making front pages look like Carmen Miranda hats — the tutti-frutti approach to color use.

There were also success stories of color use, at the St. Petersburg Times (owned by Poynter), the then-new USA Today and The Orange County Register.

We wanted to study color and its applications to newspapers, and provide editors and designers with guidelines for its effective use. Our study, which presented readers with five-page prototypes using various color applications, was primitive and did not yet involve the use of eyetracking equipment. The result was the publication of the book, "Color in American Newspapers."

Color in American Newspapers

What we learned:

1. Color clearly made a difference in eye movement, even though the largest photo on the pages drew the most attention, regardless of whether it was color or black and white.
2. Color, when added below the fold, drew the eye to it, after the largest photo.
3. Color played a more important role on lifestyle/feature pages than on news pages.
4. Color backgrounds moved the reader to the desired spot on the page.

The results of our color test were presented in 1985 at a Poynter color conference. One participant asked, "What do you think would happen if The New York Times decided to go color in the year 2010, for example?"

Another participant ventured further, saying The Wall Street Journal brand was so associated with black and white it was hard to imagine the paper ever using color.

History has responded. The New York Times introduced color on its front page in 1997. The Wall Street Journal introduced color to its U.S. edition in 2002. Our study did not make predictions, but contributed practical tips that newspapers worldwide continue to use.

Poynter's First EyeTrack Study

In 1990, we were ready to do research with equipment that would permit us to follow readers’ eyes and see where they land on a page. This was, clearly, a more scientific approach, and the industry was eagerly waiting for the results. My colleague Dr. Pegie Stark Adam and I designed the parameters and conducted the research, with the assistance of Dr. Sharon Polansky.

To make sure we crafted the research to answer the needs of the industry, we started by sending out a questionnaire to about 500 editors and designers across the country.

Our findings:

1. Readers entered a printed page through the largest image on the page.
2. The majority of readers then saw the headline next before they read the text.
3. Captions under photos were the third most frequently visited part of the page.

The Poynter-Stanford Project

Our first attempt at online EyeTrack research occurred as the industry was becoming curious about how much reading took place on news Web sites. Our colleagues Andrew DeVigal, now with The New York Times, and Marion Lewenstein, professor emeritus of communications at Stanford University, conducted the research.

The big surprise was a parade of eyeballs marching in unison across the text. Unlike print readers, who entered the page through images, online readers entered through text and headlines.

This finding caused a stir among many designers because it clashed with the generally accepted notion that graphics represent key entry points for readers of printed pages. Many print designers were, naturally, applying the same rules to the news Web sites they designed.

The findings reassured me of an observation I had been making for some time. Reading online is more like reading a book, where one concentrates on the text and prefers the photos to appear separately (explaining the rise of online photo galleries). Let nothing interrupt the flow of a narrative. Online readers were telling us this quite clearly.

EyeTrack III

Beginning in 2003, Poynter conducted a second online EyeTrack research project.

Led by Steve Outing, then of The Poynter Institute, with Laura Ruel, now of the University of North Carolina, the study found that readers typically navigate home pages by entering at the upper left and hovering there before moving left to right and down the page.

The research also revealed that underlining or rules — a frequent online design element at the time— discouraged reading, that text rather than photos was the entry point to pages, and that short paragraphs were read more than long ones.

We are all scanners and methodical readers

There is a continuum in all these studies, including the one about color, which did not use eyetracking technology. We found:

• Readers are impatient.
• All of us scan, but become more methodical readers when presented with a story that interests us.
• Large photographs play a key role on how the eye moves on the page.

With EyeTrack07, I believe we see one of the current myths destroyed: People still read, and they will read deeply into a story, if the content interests them. For years, I have said that the “Harry Potter phenomenon” is testimony to the fact that one will read a good story. The average Harry Potter installment is about 550 pages, and 14-year-olds worldwide devour it in days.

The deep reading result described in this report might partly be explained by the use of actual hometown print and Web editions of the newspaper. We'd expect the content to be more compelling than generic prototype stories used in some of Poynter’s previous EyeTrack research.

Have we lost the reading habit? Definitely not. Do we have an aversion to content that smells old, lacks consequence to our daily lives, and repeats what we already know? A resounding "yes."

It is here that EyeTrack07 brings good tidings. The study should be a provocation to make us produce better stories in whichever medium we are working. True, there is more deep reading online (see page TK), but what’s important is that once the content and writing style "seduce" the reader, she will continue to read. Finding the right content makes the difference.

Good studies lead to provocative questions, as well as practical solutions. Here are some inspired by EyeTrack07:

1. Have we lost our ability to read in depth?

We have not lost our ability to read in depth, and, in fact, reader behavior suggests attention spans have not shortened dramatically or irreversibly. But there are more highly selective readers who choose what they want to read. Even more than we thought they would.

Most surprising, they read further into stories online than in print. That was true for stories of all lengths.

TIP: For the editor/designer, make sure that an article that should be read in-depth is packaged like a lead piece.

2. Are we a society of scanners?

Yes, we are. There is a scanner in every one of us, but there is also one very devoted and methodical reader, once we find that story we wish to read.

TIP: Editors and designers should provide well-designed navigational tools to allow scanners to choose what they want to read. Secondary readings, boxes, quotes, additional points of entry are all part of how we tip off the reader.

3. Has the newspaper habit disappeared from most people's lives?

The newspaper habit may not be as prevalent today as it was for our parents’ generation, but interest in the news is as high as or higher than ever.

Print readers who participated in this study rated the daily newspaper as their primary news source, followed by the local TV news and the Internet.

Web readers who participated in this study rated the Internet as their primary news source, followed by local TV news with the daily newspaper ranked third.

TIP: Concentrate on the best content, then decide how each medium will present it, allowing for differences and using each medium for what it can do best.

4. In a multimedia society, how can the various media compete and survive?

If your organization has not put together a small group of thinkers and visionaries to study publishing on multiple platforms and how to cross them, then start now. This may be the most important topic to deliberate in the next year.

5. Can a real "fusion" of online and print truly exist?

Fusion of print and online can only happen when a "fusion editor" is assigned. This editor needs to be someone who can keep one foot in the printed edition, one in the online edition. A number of news organizations are now taking the further step of merging the print and online operations into a single newsroom.

6. What is the new definition of news?

There was a time when news was defined as "anything you find out today that you didn't know before yesterday," as New York Times managing editor Turner Catledge once said.

Today, I believe the definition should be: News is anything you found out yesterday that you need to understand today.

TIP: Online has all the advantages of time and technology to offer updated reports, while print needs to concentrate on the good stories that create that experience. Give readers the "second-day headline" on the story’s first appearance in print, as they are likely to already know the basics from other media.

7. What role will mobile telephones, iPods and other gadgets play in our newsgathering and its dissemination?

They are important, for sure. One cannot begin to assess the impact this hardware will have in how we gather and present news to users who are constantly hungry for the latest text information and visual images.

EyeTrack07 inspires these questions and many more. I hope it will lead us to rethink how we practice our craft, and also help us define the future of storytelling as we prepare to serve — as soon as 2012 — the first generation of young adults who will not remember life without the Internet.

The late Columbia professor Dr. James W. Carey, one of the most gifted journalism academics ever, and a past Poynter Institute National Advisory Board member, once said: "We cannot domesticate the future to bring it under rational, predictable control."

We can, however, contemplate the future positively and see how we can anticipate those forces that will shape how we write, edit, design and manage in a multiplatform world.

EyeTrack07 has given us some of the tools.

— Dr. Mario R. Garcia is the CEO and founder of Garcia Media and a member of Poynter’s National Advisory Board.