Men look at crotches

Among the many interesting things in Online Journalism Review’s article about using eyetracking to increase the effectiveness of news article design is this odd result:

Although both men and women look at the image of George Brett when directed to find out information about his sport and position, men tend to focus on private anatomy as well as the face. For the women, the face is the only place they viewed. Coyne adds that this difference doesn’t just occur with images of people. Men tend to fixate more on areas of private anatomy on animals as well, as evidenced when users were directed to browse the American Kennel Club site.

That is absolutely fascinating. I’d love to hear an evolutionary biologist’s take on why that is.

I’m also heartened by the article’s first featured finding: that tighter writing, more white space, and jettisoning unnecessary imagery helps readers read faster and retain more of what they’ve read.

• biology
• design
• evolution
• evolutionarybiology
• science
• web development