The determinants of web page viewing behavior: an eye-tracking study

The World Wide Web has become a ubiquitous information source and communication channel. With such an extensive user population, it is imperative to understand how web users view different web pages. Based on an eye tracking study of 30 subjects on 22 web pages from 11 popular web sites, this research intends to explore the determinants of ocular behavior on a single web page: whether it is determined by individual differences of the subjects, different types of web sites, the order of web pages being viewed, or the task at hand. The results indicate that gender of subjects, the viewing order of a web page, and the interaction between page order and site type influences online ocular behavior. Task instruction did not significantly affect web viewing behavior. Scanpath analysis revealed that the complexity of web page design influences the degree of scanpath variation among different subjects on the same web page. The contributions and limitations of this research, and future research directions are discussed.