Photos as Web Content (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox)

Summary: Users pay close attention to photos and other images that contain relevant information but ignore fluffy pictures used to "jazz up" Web pages.

Our eyetracking studies have documented a dramatic gap in how users approach website images: * Some types of pictures are completely ignored. This is typically the case for big feel-good images that are purely decorative. * Other types of pictures are treated as important content and scrutinized. Photos of products and real people (as opposed to stock photos of models) often fall into this category.