Web page visual hierarchy: Examining Faraday's guidelines for entry points

Abstract

Designers want to avoid creating “flat” visual experiences that do not communicate importance within an interface. Faraday's visual hierarchy model is often employed to predict the deployment of attention within web page interfaces (i.e., provide an importance ranking). However, only limited empirical evidence is available to validate its use. Across two studies, the model's predictive ability to determine entry points, as determined by the initial search phase, was examined. In Study 1, simple web pages were artificially manipulated to offer entry points as predicted by the model. In Study 2, current web pages containing greater complexity were coded for entry points. Across both studies, fixations were recorded while participants viewed the web pages. It was discovered that the model does a poor job predicting entry points. Moreover, it demonstrated a lack of sophistication by mainly selecting entry points on element size alone. It was found that both spatial position and distinctiveness can predict earlier attention engagement. Therefore, any updated visual hierarchy model ought to consider user expectations and visual salience. Critically, designers ought to stop employing this visual hierarchy model as its predictions can be misleading.