Thumbnails as online product displays: How Consumers process them

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Thumbnails as online product displays How
Consumers process them

• By Shun Yin Lam
• Albert Wai Lap Chau
• Tsunhin John Wong
• Presented by Carol Chan, June 28 2007

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What are Thumbnails?
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Thumbnails are

• Typically miniature product images displayed on
  one page of a Web site and hyperlinked to other
  pages of the site
• (Van Duyne, Landay Hong, 2003)
• Some examples
• (More examples can be found in Table 1)
• HMV
• http//www.hmv.com.hk/
• Jshoppers.com, online clothing store
• http//www.jshoppers.com/index-eg.asp?clr1
• Samsung (mobile phone)
• http//www.samsung.com/sg/products/gsm/index.asp

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Functions of Thumbnails

• Like the window displays of traditional
  brick-and-mortar shops
• To attract online shoppers to the inner pages of
  virtual stores
• Therefore, online marketers seek to
  strategically place these thumbnails in prime,
  high-traffic locations in their virtual stores.

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Thumbnails as online marketing communication tools

• Many internet marketers and researchers consider
  thumbnails as important elements of effective web
  design (Katerattanakul, 2002)
• As images are more quickly processed than text
  and require for less cognitive effort on the part
  of Web surfers
• (Helfman, 2000 Woodruff, Rosenholtz, Morrison,
  Faulring, Pirolli, 2002)

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Thumbnails as online marketing communication
tools (contd)

• Some internet marketers believes that searching
  for an image of a particular object among other
  images is faster than searching for the name of
  that object among other words (Paivio, 1974)
• Well graphic elements can arouse sensory or
  cognitive curiosity of Web surfers, leading to a
  search for more information (Katerattanakul, 2002)

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Advantages of using Thumbnails

• Shorten the downloading time of visual displays
  on Web pages when compare with using full-sized
  images (Katerattanakul Siau, 2003 Lynch
  Horton, 2001)
• Though small in size, can be perceived quickly
  (Helfman, 2000)
• Help to make a favorable early impression of the
  page and encouraging visitors to further explore
  the site (Rosen Purinton, 2004)

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Reasons for the study

• Little or no research has been done to examine
  how the placement of thumbnails affects consumer
  information processing.
• There are three main reasons to investigate How
  consumer process thumbnails

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Reasons for the study (contd)

• (1) Arrangement of thumbnails affects the effort
  of locating a particular product and the
  appearance of a Web page, and so the navigation
  efficiency and the quality of presentation
  pertaining to a Web site.
• Enable Web marketers to better present their
  products to earn consumers favorable perceptions
  and greater trust in their sites.

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Reasons for the study (contd)

• (2)The amount of information processing the
  individual thumbnails triggered is related to
  communication effects
• Prior research has shown that it has significant
  effect on the consumers memory of the element
  (Wedel Pieters 2000)
• Previous studies also demonstrated that the
  extent to which a brand on a shelf display is
  processed positively affects the probability it
  will be considered for purchase (Chandon,
  Hutchinson, Young, 2001). Applied to the use of
  thumbnail array, it worth study.

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Reasons for the study (contd)

• (3) No study has investigated the search behavior
  of consumers within a page.
• Help to reveal how potential customers search for
  a particular product within a page

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Objectives of the study

• To provide insights into within page information
  processing and search behaviors by analyzing
  consumers eye movement over a thumbnail array
• Based on the assumption that the rectangular
  configuration of a thumbnail array triggers an
  eye-movement (scanning) routine, that is related
  to the reading direction associated with the
  language a consumer use most often in reading and
  writing

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Literature Review
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Cognitive processing and measurement of eye
movement

• Cognitive processing by humans can be divided
  into two types of activity
• The acquisition of information from the
  environment or retrieval of information from
  memory
• Internal operations (e.g. comprehension) that are
  performed on the information acquired or
  retrieved (Rayner, 1998 Russo, 1978)

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Cognitive processing and measurement of eye
movement

• Most efficient means for human to obtain
  information (Rayner, 1998 Russo, 1978)
• Eye Fixation
• moments when our eyes remain relatively
  stationary
• Information is extracted form the stimulus upon
  which the eyes fixate and processed internally
• Saccades
• Jump between fixation
• Vision is suppressed
• Eye-movement is measured by eye-tracking devices
  that can continually record in small time
  interval the exact fixation point.

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Advantages of collecting eye-fixation data

• Reveal moment-to-moment processing activities
  within a Web page
• Clarify exactly how much information consumers
  gather and process from different objects on the
  page
• So, help to study the efficiency of consumers to
  gather information from a Web page

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Key Constructs Measures Used in the study (1)

• Search direction
• Definition the direction to which a participants
  moves his/her sight across the environment when
  trying to locate an object
• Measure Saccade counts in each direction
  category
• (Eight categories, north east, south, west,
  northeast, southeast, southeast, southwest and
  northwest, dividing 360 degree into eight equal
  sectors)

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Key Constructs Measures Used in the study (2)

• Attention Speed
• Definition How fast a participant pays attention
  to a stimulus
• Measure Inverse of the time taken for the first
  fixation on the stimulus to occur

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Key Constructs Measures Used in the study (3)

• Amount of processing
• Definition The quantity of information extracted
  from a stimulus and then processed internally
• Measure Fixation frequency and gaze duration
  pertaining to the stimulus

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Key Constructs Measures Used in the study (4)

• Search effort
• Definition The total amount of effort required
  to search for a target object and to confirm that
  it is located in the environment
• Measure Total fixation frequency and the total
  gaze duration over the entire length of the
  search process

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Information Processing in the Web Environment

• Web page can be considered a type of scene, as
  its often consists of some background elements
  such as
• Web page menu bars,
• Background colors and so forth,
• And objects, for instances
• Thumbnails
• Text,
• Banner ads and etc
• Viewer gathers and processes global visual and
  semantic information in the first few fixations
  (Henderson Hollingworth, 1999). Viewer can thus
  identify or categorize the scene and it may in
  turn activate an automated eye-movement
  (scanning) routine associated with the category
  to which the scene belongs (Furst, 1971
  Janiszewski, 1998 Pieters Warlop, 1999)
• May applicable to thumbnail identification.

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Information Processing in the Web Environment
(contd)

• Research in cognitive psychology provides
  evidences that people follow a routine in
  scanning a matrix of object to some extent and
  this routine is related to their dominant reading
  direction.
• English speakers- Left to right, Top to bottom
• Hebrew speakers- right to left

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Hypotheses

• H1 The direction in which a Web surfer searches
  for information over a thumbnail array reflects
  his or her dominant reading direction
• H2 The difference in the attention speed for
  items in the left and the right regions of a
  thumbnail array reflects the dominant reading
  direction of the Web surfer
• H3 The difference in the attention speed for
  items in the left and the right regions of a
  thumbnail array is larger in early fixation than
  in later fixation

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Hypotheses (contd)

• H4 The difference in the amount of cognitive
  processing carried out for items in the left and
  the right regions of a thumbnail array reflects a
  Web surfers dominant reading direction
• H5 The difference in the amount of cognitive
  processing carried out for items in the left and
  the right regions of a thumbnail array is larger
  in early fixations than in later fixations
• H6 The relationship between the search effort
  required of a web surfer to locate a particular
  product on a thumbnail array and the position of
  the thumbnail depicting the product reflects the
  surfers dominant reading direction

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Classification of Regions Sites of Interest on
a thumbnail array

• If a region of the thumbnail array is found to be
  processed first or more intensely than the
  others, will be advisable to place the
  promotional product in that region
• If individuals with different cultures exhibit
  different eye-movement norms, maybe worthwhile to
  personalize the thumbnail organization to suit
  the norms

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Methodology

• Conducted an eye-tracking experiment in the Eye
  Movement Laboratory in the University of Hong
  Kongs Dept. of Psychology
• Used Eyelink system to record fixation position
  at a sampling rate of 250Hz with two cameras to
  collect head movements
• Participants
• Students below 30 years old
• A group of 95 local students
• A group of 50 mainland students

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Dominant Reading directions of local students

• Right to Left
• Top to bottom

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Dominant Reading directions of mainland students

• Left to Right

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Methodology (contd)

• Materials Select 12 target Chinese Web pages
  pitched a variety of consumer products such as
  mobile phones, electrical appliances and watches.
  6 items are shown in 1 page, arranged in 2 rows
  with 12 existing web pages to form a series of 24
  pages
• Procedure Each participants was asked to view
  the 24 target and filler pages successively to
  study the key constructs listed before.

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Results - Search direction

• Appears that participants moved their eyes
  horizontally more often than vertically, and
  vertically moved their eyes more often than they
  did so diagonally
• Dominance of the horizontal direction supports
  H1, that the search direction reflects the
  dominant reading direction of consumers
• Yet the differences between local and mainland
  students are not indicated

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Results Attention Speed

• Participants first looked at the middle regions,
  moved their eyes toward the left, and then toward
  the right.
• Support H2, that the difference in the attention
  speed between the left and the right regions of a
  thumbnail array reflects the dominant reading
  direction of a surfer
• The left-right difference was more significant
  for the upper row than that for the lower row.
  This supports H3, states that the difference in
  the attention speed between the left and the
  right regions is larger in early fixation than it
  is in later ones.

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Result - Processing Amount

• The upper middle region received more processing
  than the other regions
• The left regions received impressively more
  processing than the right regions.
• Supports H4 which states that the difference in
  the amount of processing carried out by a Web
  surfer on the left and the right regions reflects
  his/her dominant reading direction
• Researchers combined with the observation on the
  average gaze at the upper row earlier than they
  do at the lower row, the result supports H5, that
  the difference in the amount of processing
  between the left and the right regions is larger
  in early fixation than it is in the later ones.

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Result - Search Effort

• Participants appeared to find the target item
  more quickly when the item was in the left
  regions compared with those in the right regions
• Seemed to be more efficient in their search when
  the item was in the upper row compared with those
  in the lower row.
• The left-right difference appeared to be about
  the same for both the upper and lower rows
• Overall result supports H6, states that the
  relationship between the search effort and the
  target location reflects a surfers dominant
  reading direction

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Conclusion

• Participants first fixated on the middle and then
  on the left and finally on the right regions,
  support the hypotheses
• Tended to looked at the upper row before the
  lower row
• Appeared to process the left regions to a greater
  extent than they did the right regions
• Eyes moved horizontally and vertically more often
  than diagonally
• The findings are consistent to the tenet that a
  scanning routine related to the dominant reading
  direction affects participants eye movement over
  a thumbnail array

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Expanded implications

• Web marketers could
• Enhance consumers navigation efficiency by
  placing items in high demand on the
  eye-catching regions
• (Question Which regions?)
• Increase the chance the products to be found
• reduce the number of click, that save the effort
  of backtracking

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Expanded implications

• Placement of thumbnail in the eye-catching
  regions could enhance the hedonic experience of
  visitors
• Consider placing aesthetic images or products
  with new features (create curiosity)
• Regularly change the images in these regions (for
  return traffic)

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Expanded implications

• Consider the cultural congruity of a web site.
• Lunar, Peracchio and deJuan (2002) provided
  evidence that the cultural congruity of a site is
  positively related to a visitors attitude
  towards the products advertised in the site.
• Many global marketers vary the Web site content
  by country
• e.g. Nokia, Samsung
• Personalize/Strategically matching the thumbnail
  applications according to different cultures may
  help to promote and market the products