People ignore ads, pictures on Web sites
A new study by the Nielsen Norman Group, a firm that researches ways to make Websites more user-friendly, finds that people scan Web sites very quickly, and instantly dismiss much of what they see. The study used special equipment to track eye movements of 230 users as they visited various sites. Web design expert Jakob Nielsen says he was a little surprised to learn that users tend to avoid most large pictures. He was less shocked to learn that people ignore pricey, graphic-rich ads.