Following Gazes - Digital Psychology #7

We Follow Each Other’s Gaze

Just as we make eye contact, so we are inclined to look where others are looking. You know what I’m talking about, you see someone looking up in a tree (maybe at the zoo) and you look up there to see what they are looking at. Is it interesting? Can I see it? Or is it something I’m not interested in?

In a popular study done by Usable World, visitors were found to act much as they would offline. When a baby made eye contact with the camera, they were drawn very strongly to the photo of the baby. See below:

On the other hand, when the baby was positioned to look like it was looking at content in the page, eye contact was shared between the baby and it’s “gaze.” See below:

Using a photo of a person that is looking off-camera is a great way to direct attention to your content.  

Using a photo of a person that is looking off-camera (as long as they appear to be looking at your content) can be much more useful to guide your visitors than making eye contact. You can share the same emotion with visitors as when you make eye contact, but also help to show them another area of the page.

Because you are constantly pointing them in a direction with the gaze of the person in the photo, this is something you can do more regularly, even in the main area of the page.