Back in February, Google told us about how they have been using some fancy research using eye-tracking studies. They told us how they found out that:
“people tend to scan the search results in order”
and then they
“continue down the list until they find a result they consider helpful and click it”
I especially liked the pretty eye-tracking heat-map image:
Okay, so this alone is not that impressive – I think we already knew it was important to be #1 or #2 in the Search results. However, we are told how Google has used eye-tracking tests to prove that thumbnail images don’t get in the way of Universal Search results, such as Image and Video results. Personally, I think that the real answer is search query-dependant – I know I’ve definitely seen thumbnails get in the way of good results.
So this is how Google improves our search results. Not quite.
Less than meets the eye
Lets remember we are talking about Google – employing thousands of software engineers, with access to peta-bytes of data. And they get a handful of people into a room to play around with eye-tracking cameras?
We now know that Google is actively monitoring exactly which search results are clicked by users. And our friends at Omniture told us that around 10% of US Internet users are happily providing that data to Google.
So lets look at what Google could use to improve our search results:
- A pretty eye-tracking heat-map, based on what 30 Internet users did in a usability lab with cameras on their heads.
- Actual click data for every single Google search made every single day by 30 million Internet users – 10% of the US population.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m sure that Google does genuinely use eye-tracking, field studies and small tests. And it probably isn’t practical for Google to track our eye movements through our laptop webcams.
But lets be clear – actual click data from 30m Internet users is going to be pretty powerful data.
Don’t be evil
All this makes me wonder if the Blog post from Google was a piece of well-timed PR – as the blogosphere now believes that Google improves search results in a usability lab. The real (and possibly a little more worrying) truth is that around 10% of US Internet users are being monitored very very closely: with every click being tracked by Google.
Here, in the UK, our privacy is quite important to us. I’m sure our US friends feel the same too. But the idea that Google watches your every click is pretty scary. Even if Google seems to genuinely try so hard to not be evil.
Lets keep an eye on this
In conclusion – we know that Google is using eye-tracking studies to improve usability. But Google is also collecting quite a lot of data about *exactly* where you click.
So be careful, and make sure you watch where you click – because Google will, even if you don’t.
