Clever animated graphics and pictures are not as important to website visitors as plain text, new research has claimed.

NetMedia 2000, the two-day conference for Internet journalists held at City University, London, heard about a new study called Eyetrack 2000.

It concluded that plain text is what really attracts. Participants in the project focused 92 per cent more on plain text compared to 64 per cent on photos and a mere 22 per cent on graphics.

The research also discovered that users are happier to scroll down a long page rather than continuously having to move the mouse to the 'back' button. Other findings suggest three clicks are the average depth users will submerge themselves in before leaving the site.

For more details of this project, visit www.poynter.org/eyetrack2000

Elsewhere at the conference, Steve Yelvington, executive editor of Cox Interactive Media, quoted a gloomy prediction that most dotcoms will be out of business by the end of 2000.

But he continued with better news for Internet journalists. He said research by the Pew Centre showed that consumers rate Internet news as highly credible, a fact reflected in the growth of new media journalism .

The forum concluded that the answer to creating good news on the net was first to build a sound business model then to build on this with a type of journalism that is right for the medium. It is not enough just to recycle good print and broadcast content. Instead content must be designed and written to reflect the diverse nature of the medium.

To read more reports from the conference click here

Back to the online index

Do you have an online story for us?
E-mail us now