Attempts to Attract Eyesight in E-Commerce May Have Negative Effects

Area of Science:

• Human-Computer Interaction
• E-commerce User Experience
• Visual Merchandising

Background:

• E-commerce success relies on effectively directing user attention to products.
• Presentation methods are crucial for product recommendations, alongside algorithms.
• Visual highlighting techniques are employed to enhance product visibility and sales.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the impact of different visual highlight types (background, shadow, animation, border) and intensities on user attention and interest in an online furniture store.
• To determine the optimal highlighting strategy for attracting user attention and driving product selection.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a combination of implicit (eye-tracking, cart tracking) and explicit (surveys) data collection methods.
• Experimentally tested various highlight types and intensities within a 5x2 grid layout.
• Measured user fixations, selection behavior, and explicit interest.

Main Results:

• Low-intensity background highlights led to the longest user fixation times and the highest number of product selections.
• Strong-intensity animations successfully attracted initial user attention and fixation duration.
• Despite attracting attention, high-intensity animations negatively impacted user purchasing decisions, with fewer products added to the cart.

Conclusions:

• Low-intensity background highlights are recommended for optimizing user attention and product selection in e-commerce settings.
• Overly intense visual highlights, particularly animations, can be counterproductive, hindering rather than promoting sales.
• Balancing visual appeal with user experience is key to effective online product presentation.