What catches your attention? A red dot on your Whatsapp, an email that arrives with a ping, a push message from Nu.nl? These are well-known attention grabbers. But also: a traffic light, the sound of an ambulance, your alarm clock going off and probably the title of this blog. 

We live in a world where we are constantly stimulated by attention seekers in our environment. These attention grabbers are very cleverly designed. The way our attention is caught causes us to perform the desired behavior. In fact, we react automatically to this kind of salience. At a loud bang, we collapse before we have even consciously heard it. Evolutionarily, of course, this is extremely smart for survival. 

The digital world conveniently capitalizes on this natural reaction, because say it, how hard is it to ignore that red dot on your Whatsapp? 

In this article, I will discuss (online) attention and discuss some attention points for when you want to start optimizing for attention.

What is attention?

Attention is a cognitive process that allows us to focus on processing certain information. We focus a spotlight, so to speak, on a specific spot ignoring other information in your environment (Treisman, 1982). There are two types of attention that determine where we focus our spotlight; top-down and bottom-up. In top-down attention, you consciously direct where you want to place your attention. In bottom-up, your attention is automatically moved by information you experience through your senses (Desimore & Duncan, 1995). 

In everyday life, these two forms of attention allow us to both concentrate on a task, but also respond when needed. For example, (top-down) having a conversation at a noisy get-together where we are not distracted by other conversations or music, but can still (bottom-up) catch our own name in the crowd. 

Our attention span is limited. Attentively, top-down, performing a task takes a lot of energy. It is difficult to focus for long periods of time. In addition, we are very sensitive to outside sensations. Our senses act as cogs that pick up information outside the spotlight which also allows our attention to move easily, bottom-up, when needed. 

Online attention

Website visitors need attention to concentrate on a task. But online, there are many attention-grabbers that can distract your visitor. This starts when we do our first Google task. Your attention is caught by the ranking of ads, words used, length of ads, reviews that become visible, images, etc. Upon arrival at a website of your choice, a cookie notification pops into view, followed by scintillating ads, flashing login/newsletter pop-ups and beckoning CTAs. Before you've even looked at various options, you're inundated with attention-grabbing ads. 

In general, we're pretty good online at getting our visitors“ attention. But do these attention grabbers lead to the desired behavior? Does a login pop-up cause more logins, or conversion loss? Does a ”Skip the extras step" CTA cause more click-throughs, or also more dropouts, back clicks and lower order value? Does showing a Youtube video cause more conversions, or more interest in Youtube than your product?

Optimizing for attention

Color, shape, contrast, movement, emotion: these are all elements you can play with to attract attention. But sometimes it is not necessary to draw attention at all because your visitors are already attentively looking at your website. The biggest pitfall here is asking for too much attention. Our attention span is limited, avoid overwhelming your visitors.

Optimizing for attention is quite complicated. Therefore, here are 4 points to consider.

1. Where is the focus now?

Is it even necessary to use an attention-getter?

First, take a good look at your own pages. Which elements already stand out, are these also the elements you want them to stand out? Look into your data. Use google analytics, heatmaps, scroll maps or possibly even eye trackers in usability research. Are your visitors clicking where you want them to click, are visitors scrolling to the information they need to see, or are visitors doing things you don't want them to do? This way you can research where your visitors' attention is. 

Then ask yourself, is it necessary to shift attention or can visitors find their way? Is attention not in the right place? Then it's time to shift attention.

2. How do you want to shift attention?

What do you want to achieve by deploying an attention-getter?

I'm a big fan of clever attention grabbers. Turning a staircase into a piano (including music!) makes more people take the stairs than the escalator. Having to walk all over Ikea to buy a Billy bookcase ensures that you come home with dishwashing brushes, storage boxes, kitchen supplies and Swedish balls as well. And of course, the notifications on your phone cause you to be glued to phone all day. The way these attention triggers are designed takes into account target behavior (traipsing, buying more and engagement). So you can see that you can make a big behavior change with a subtle attention grabber. So you don't always need to hear a fire alarm to change behavior. And that's a very important tip for your website. It makes no sense to fill your entire website with attention grabbers, rather look at the subtle tweaks through which you can drive attention.

The level of attention also has to do with how many attention pullers the entire website has. Sometimes getting rid of distractors (banners, SEO texts, products that are never chosen, images that add nothing, pages that are too long and other click-through links) is better at directing attention than adding attention grabbers (arrows, pop-ups, blow-ups, motion, colors, emotion).

Before you want to influence attention, think about what the target behavior is and tailor your design accordingly.

3. Top down attention is also good

Know what your visitors are looking for.

Sometimes you don't need an attention-getter to get noticed. If visitors search for something (top-down) on your Web site, they will do their best to find that thing. But if visitors search for an Internet & TV subscription and you only sell home subscriptions, the product they're looking for won't stand out. Make sure you know what language your visitor speaks, that makes the right product easy to find. 

4. Avoid an attention mismatch

Does shifting attention help achieve your goal or that of your visitor?

Why do visitors come to your website? Is it to buy a book, shop online, send a greeting card, buy a bed, read news articles? Make sure the attention you want to attract contributes to your visitor's goal. 

Everything that visitors need to pay attention to (bottom-up) but don't want to pay attention to is distraction. These distractions cause attention to shift and this takes mental energy. Especially watch out for cross-sell and upsell. Are these products that your visitor is waiting for or does it actually cause a negative effect on conversion?

For example, if a visitor wants to buy a bed, don't try to distract them with discounts for chairs.

These were the 4 focus points for optimizing for attention. Now it's up to you to smartly direct attention!

Want to learn more about attention, investigating attention and deploying attention optimizations? Especially take contact on to exchange experiences or discuss opportunities for cooperation.

Ref:

Treisman, A. (1980) Perceptual Grouping an Attention in Visual Search for Features and for Objects. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 8(2), 194-214.

Desimore, R., & Duncan, J. (1995). Neural mechanisms of Selective Visual Attention. Annual Review Neuroscience, 18, 193-222.