Comments on Carrer Blog: F pattern or just simple triangle

If we want to aid people in reading, we just have ...

2009-06-09T18:32:37.981+02:00

If we want to aid people in reading, we just have to emphasize hierarchy through typographic color. I don't quite see yet the importance of such patterns when compared with proper hierarchies.

Example: http://typesites.com/typographica/

I think our default reading pattern would depend o...

2009-05-02T02:07:00.000+02:00

I think our default reading pattern would depend on the context and the content. If you're reading a book and don't want to miss any of the story, you're most likely reading a complete rectangle... but so much of what we do on the web involves skimming the content with the intent of finding relevant information as quickly as possible - hence, the triangle.

It's interesting that you bring up "being born with" knowledge of form and shape. The human visual system is tuned to identify edges, corners, sharp changes in contrast, and so on, so there is definitely something that. Beyond that, there's some pretty definitive research showing that infants very quickly learn to look at their mother's eyes and mouth, so it seems like there is some innate knowledge of what we're looking for.

The way shapes are identified in our brains is by combining all of the little pieces together into a bigger object. So if you see a square (to take a simple example), your brain initially (and almost instantaneously )identifies four corners and four edges and then goes through a somewhat slower process of combining those edges and corners into one object.

I'm not sure that the Golden Triangle and shape processing are necessarily related - if you look at a Google search results page, the information isn't arranged in a triangle, so it's unlikely that our brains say "oh, a triangle!" and control our gaze accordingly. I think in this case it's much more a result of our desire to get to what we want to find quickly.

@Ian: Thank you for dropping by, I'm very happy to...

2009-04-30T01:46:00.000+02:00

@Ian: Thank you for dropping by, I'm very happy to see that we all came to the same conclusion it's not F it is triangle.
I tryed to go one step further that the triangle is maybe our default reading pattern but probably I was wrong.

I was wondering how our brain process various forms and shapes, when we are born how can we distinguish various object, we must some genetic knowledge.

I find some interesting stuff about Gestalt psychology, but I have many many open questions.

My guess is we all start with simple forms and we multiply and construct more complex forms something like fractals.

The triangle is very simple object, it is the first object that can be built with 3 lines (with 2 lines we can't built any form), not to mention is one of most strongest constructs in architecture also is perfect for fractalization.

Interesting article! Some research to back up you...

2009-04-28T22:55:00.000+02:00

Interesting article!

Some research to back up your triangle hypothesis: gaze behaviour on a Google search results page has been studied quite extensively. You point out that the heatmaps show a triangle - this gaze behaviour was originally dubbed the "Google Golden Triangle" (see Enquiro's Google Eye Tracking whitepapers) and the "F-pattern" has arisen as a way to further break that triangle down. It hints at the fact that the triangle is not just a solid wash of gaze fixations, but rather that there are prominent lines of gaze behaviour that follow certain parts of the text.

There are absolutely cultural differences - see the Enquiro whitepaper about Chinese Search Engine Engagement. In a comparison of Google China and Baidu, we found that Chinese searches tend to read every piece of information available on the page. This is remarkably different from the North American approach of a quick scan of the first few links and then selection.

It's important to note that this Golden Triangle is the typical behaviour of a North American searcher using Google. However, that's because Google has done a great job of making sure that highly relevant results are served up near the top of the page, and in doing so has conditioned us to look at the page this way. If you look at heatmaps from searchers using MSN or Yahoo, the gaze behaviour is different, mainly because of the perceived relevancy of the results that are presented and the user experience.

From a visual saliency standpoint (that is, things on the page standing out and capturing our attention), the Google search results page doesn't really change much, so we revert to our learned behaviour and scan it in much the same way every time we go there. There are always exceptions, as you point out with your example.

Another interesting thing to look is how the introduction of universal search has affected gaze behaviour. Now that Google (and others) incorporates images, videos, etc. into their search results, the Golden Triangle is starting to disappear. These other items tend to act as "barriers" and either fence fixations in or route them to different areass.

Vlad: I agree, there are many cultural influences...

2009-03-10T16:43:00.000+01:00

Vlad: I agree, there are many cultural influences to the way in which we scan text. I was speaking from a "western" perspective with the horizontal and vertical references I made (l->r t->b). Another thing to consider with this, which may very well be the most influential is how we have been "trained" by Google search results--having learned what is pertinent information in those results. I agree with anon1 in that this pattern may fit with Corp or Ecom, but not necessarily in the same manner--especially if it is a site that we are "new" to or are actually interested in. Think of the way you scan a search page vs. a photo album. very different--different visual cues will influence our approach to the site.

@AnonymousII: I think they are many factors influe...

2009-03-09T17:10:00.000+01:00

@AnonymousII: I think they are many factors influencing our reading process. Like you mentioned left to right or right to left(Arabic) or top to bottom(Chinese). Then what are our interest or passion. And many other small things. But I was in the search of our default reading pattern (if any). How we scan the text? Do we divide the page in small triangles or circles? ..

F pattern...hmm I wonder if the "F" has anything t...

2009-03-09T16:44:00.000+01:00

F pattern...hmm I wonder if the "F" has anything to do with the fact that we read from left to right, top to bottom...imagine that--it resembles a Letter "F" Nothing new with that information, to be honest with you, that all hearkens back to your basic principles of information design.

@Anonymous: I think it fits well on every bigger b...

2009-03-04T12:52:00.000+01:00

@Anonymous: I think it fits well on every bigger block of text.

Funny how you treat Nielsen's study result partial...

2009-03-03T22:14:00.000+01:00

Funny how you treat Nielsen's study result partially to suit your idea. Indeed it seems that your triangle idea fits on SERP. Does it fit as well on Corporate and e-commerce ?

Interesting point of view. Thanks!

2009-03-03T14:51:00.000+01:00

Interesting point of view. Thanks!

Interesting post!

2009-03-03T14:22:00.000+01:00

Interesting post!