I’ve had a subscription to PC Magazine for a while now. Honestly, it’s a mixed bag. Sometimes it contains really useful information; other times, it just seems like a forum for tech writers to blow hot air. (Case in point, the terrible article written a few issues back by the previous editor-in-chief, Jim Louderback, predicting the utter failure of the iPhone. This is the same guy who admitted in the most recent issue that he was totally wrong to sing the praises of Windows Vista. Hmm.)
Whenever I receive an issue, I sit down and leaf through it looking for new and interesting things. A story that caught my attention was one that discussed a report that studied website users’ eye movements when visiting news sites. Below is a link to the heart of the report which is a schematic of a website labeling distinct areas where users’ eyes tend to focus, and for what kinds of content. This is quite interesting stuff to me, not just because of thinking about how FML might be improved, but also in relation to my extensive involvement with a bunch of other people on launching a new library portal at my place of work. We’re only now at the stage where user testing can commence in earnest. User tests have been done before but now that we have something solid and functional in place, we can begin to see where improvements in the user interface and experience can be improved.
