Imagine a video of a person talking to the camera. Such aptly named “talking-head” videos are visually boring, as we found in our first eyetracking studies of web-based video 12 years ago: Users stop watching quickly and sometimes even feel cheated because the video content is uninteresting and wastes their time. Now that web video has matured, sites can employ higher-quality video, and we thought that it was time to revisit our old research. Make no mistake, nothing is going to save a video with a dull message. But our new eyetracking research shows that, even in a talking-head video, some simple video-producing techniques can capture users’ visual attention.

Unlike other web media, video involves both sight and hearing. The information transmitted over any of these channels might bore or tantalize users. Eyetracking research reveals that there are different levels of waning (visual or auditory) interest, signaled by different user actions.

User’s Reaction to the Video

User’s Action

Loses visual interest of the main subject of the video, but maintains interest in audio and the other visuals in the video

Continues playing the video; looks at areas other than the main subject

Loses visual interest, but maintains audio interest

Continues playing the video, but looks at other parts of the page outside the video

Loses visual interest in the subject or whole video, but maintains interest in the page or hopes that the video will become interesting again

Continues playing the video, but looks at areas other than the main subject, or at other parts of the page outside the video;
May click something else on the page, such as a related article or video, or a link in the global navigation

Loses visual and audio interest, and sees nothing else of interest on the page

Leaves the site

Assuming that the goals are to get people to watch the video all the way to the end and to click something else on the website, the worst thing that can happen is that the user abandons the video and leaves the site. So how do you prevent this from happening?

Change the Visual

The single most important technique for keeping visual interest is to frequently change the visual. When the video looks the same except for moving lips and blinking eyes, users get bored. But a greater change in facial expression, subject position, and even camera angle can reawaken the user’s attention.

The following sections include specific tips for increasing engagement, explained though a case study from our recent eyetracking user testing.

1. Be Animated and Smile, if Appropriate

Psychologists have long known that humans are attracted to smiling faces. Our eyetracking research also shows that users look at smiling faces, especially when that face is looking straight at the camera.

Our study participants watching the “Hunger 101” video on www.weighwatchers.com had to answer the question How can people tell when they are hungry versus when they just want to eat? The video included a male and a female host, and three female guests who discus the difference between being physically hungry versus wanting to eat when your body doesn’t require food.

The first frame shows the two hosts sitting side by side. The woman begins speaking with a lot of energy in her voice; accompanied by a wide, tooth-baring, face-altering smile. Users were attracted to her smiling, animated face. Multiple users exhibited similar fixation patterns, but for our case study we’ll look at one user’s steps as he watched the video.

Here is the gaze replay of the user watching the first part of the video. The moving blue dot indicates where the user was looking.

This clip shows a soundless gaze replay of a study participant watching the Hunger 101 video on weightwatchers.com. In most browsers, hover over the video to display the controls if they're not already visible.

In the beginning, the user looked at both hosts, but mostly at the woman. The male host looked straight at the camera and seemed relaxed and approachable. For a facial expression, he wore a small, toothless smile. But once he changed that to a broader, tooth-baring grin, the user looked at him, as seen in the gaze plots below.

Left: The user looked at the smiling, animated woman more than at the man, who wasn’t really smiling. Right: When the man did smile, the user began to look at him. (In the gaze plot the blue dots show where the user fixated. Larger dots mean longer fixations. The line between fixations represents a saccade which is an eye movement between fixations. During a saccade, the user is not looking at anything and is virtually blind.)

Of course, not every video is about amusing topics, so sometimes it would be inappropriate to laugh or act jolly. But even when discussing sober topics, hosts can change their facial expressions to attract user attention.

2. Include Visually Interesting Background Elements that Don’t Detract from the Subject

If hosts are not incredibly animated, they will lose the user’s attention quickly. But the viewer may still be interested in the audio and even in other elements in the video.

In the gaze plot below, the user was still listening, but his fixations veered away from the sameness of the man’s face and instead attended to the plant in the background. One might argue that looking at the plant takes brain power and thus detracts from the audio message. But it was a benign element that kept the user’s visual attention focused on the video, and gave him something to look at as he listened to the audio.

The plant wasn’t distracting, but was probably a pleasant item to look at when the user became bored with the talking head.

3. Outside the Video Frame, Display Both Content and Links Related to the Video, and the Site’s Global Navigation

When users are still involved with the audio but start losing visual interest, they may look at page elements that are not part of the video, as seen in the gaze plot below. Related content can keep the users’ interest as they let the video run and decide if it’s worth it to keep watching. The information on the page may even supplement the video.

Weary of the talking head, the user kept listening, but his gaze wandered to the related content outside the video.

Most important, related content gives users a place to look at and go when they are finished with the video — whether they watched to the end or lost interest partway.

Some sites hide all other content, even the global navigation, when a video is playing, aiming to protect viewers from distractions. Creating an immersive experience can be valuable, but only if the user is highly engaged with the content and committed to spending time with it. If the user’s interest fades and there is no other content, links, or global navigation to advertise what else is on the site, then the person has no choice but to leave the site.

4. Vary the Subject

There are many ways to vary the subject of a video. Major changes in the video will capture people’s attention and revive their interest. For example, having two hosts means you can show both people together, or zoom in on either one. Similarly, changing the camera angle — such as remaining focused on the subject but panning the room — also grabs attention.

The camera zoomed in on one host and changed the angle; the host changed her position. These things combined with the host’s smile seized the user’s attention.
When a different person appeared to tell her story, users paid attention to her.

5. Include Related Graphics as Overlays in the Video

Text and graphics can complement the main message. Visuals that appear in the video attract attention, and seeing and hearing the same message reinforces it to the users.

The checkboxes in the upper right related to the true-or-false quiz the hosts partook in. Users looked at these boxes when they first appeared and also after the correct answer boasted a large red X. (Though we recommend using a color other than red to denote correct answers since red means “wrong” in many situations.)

Users who watched this video looked at different overlay elements that related to audio content 82% of the time — that is, when an overlay was displayed on the screen, there was a 4 out of 5 chance that the viewer looked at it.

Later in the video, another type of overlay was used — a chalkboard that summarized the main points. This content and the change in the visual brought the user’s attention back to the video.

6. Upon Scene Changes, Take Advantage of Residual Fixations

Residual fixations occur when the user is focusing on an area, and that area (the scene in the video or the web page) changes, but the user’s eyes don’t move. Whatever appears where the user was looking at benefits from that user’s involuntary attention. (In our 2009 book Eyetracking Web Usability we further discuss the concept of residual fixations.)

Webpage refreshes are sometimes slow and, thus, users move their gazes before the new page loads. But video-frame refresh is usually so fast that there are many residual fixations. Use these to your advantage by placing the most interesting element in the upcoming frame in the same or close position to the most interesting element in the current frame.

Movie directors and editors have many techniques for interesting scene changes. But viewers’ commitment to watching a 90-minute movie is very different from that of watching a 1-minute video on the web.

In the “Hunger 101” video, residual fixations were used effectively several times. All the faces appeared in the same place on the screen, one after the other. So, users had no chance to get bored because a new, interesting face showed up immediately, exactly where they were already looking.

In an ineffective use of residual fixations, the smiling host’s face was replaced with the space between the two hosts, which housed a wooden credenza.

Left: The user looked at the smiling face. Right: When the picture changed, the user’s residual fixations were on the space between the hosts — not a very interesting place.
Left: The user grew tired of the same scene and began looking at the plant in the background. Right: The chalkboard graphic disappeared and the camera zoomed in on the man, but the plant remained in the same position, and the user continued to fixate on it. Keeping the plant in the same place gave the user a visual anchor, which can be comforting.

Summary

Appealing content and usable design can entice people to watch a video for a longer time. The most engaging videos include a good story, a good storyteller, and are created for the media on which they will be viewed. The most usable videos set user expectations about the topic of the video, and how long the video is. They also give users control over playing, pausing, and stopping.

In the short video we examined, the visuals changed many times. When the pictures remain constant, users grow uninterested and look outside the video frame. But even small visual changes keep users visually engaged or recapture their visual attention.