The Effects of Webpage Prototypicality, Aesthetics, and Complexity on Eye Fixations and Company Perception

Webpage design affects both eye movements while viewing a page, and the quickly formed first impression, which in turn influences user preference and judgments of website and organizational goodness. We conducted an eye-tracking user study (n = 32) that revealed webpage properties—visual aesthetics, complexity, and prototypicality—to affect the number of fixations on a page, probably due to visually appealing content attracting the eye, more content or more confusing content requiring extra fixations, and more typical layout facilitating webpage exploration. Higher aesthetics consistently influenced user preference, resulting in more positive judgments regarding various aspects of organizational goodness, including perceived employer attractiveness, organizational competence, and purchase intention. Higher complexity negatively affected user preference and lowered perceived organizational goodness, but only for apparel-shopping websites and not for commercial banking. Higher prototypicality was associated with higher perceived organizational competence. An analysis of eye fixations on various webpage components suggested that user impressions may form based on the overall webpage design rather than any specific webpage element or component.