Making-Original-Products-presentationzen

The Power of Faces to Get
Attention and Guide Viewers’ Eyes
We are amazingly good at seeing faces. We are so good at
spotting faces that we even see them where they do not
exist. In fact, said Carl Sagan, “As an inadvertent side effect,
the pattern-recognition machinery in our brains is so efficient
in extracting a face from a clutter of other detail that we
sometimes see faces where there are none.” This explains
why people see an image of Mother Teresa in a cheese
sandwich or a face on Mars. Faces—and things approximating
images of faces—get our attention. Graphic designers and
marketers know this very well, which is why you so often see
faces in various forms of marketing communication.
We are naturally drawn to look in the direction that other Photo: NASA
people are looking. I noticed that even my baby daughter looks
where I look; this tendency starts at an early age.
Using images of faces—even nonhuman faces—can be effective for getting
viewers’ attention. This is especially true in mediums such as posters, magazines,
and billboards, but this concept can be applied to multimedia and large screen
displays as well. Because faces are so effective at getting attention, they must be
used with discretion. One important consideration is the issue of eye gaze and
leading the eye of the viewer. For example, the two images below are from a
study by James Breeze at usableworld.com.au, which used eye-tracking software to
determine if the direction the baby looked onscreen influenced the eye gaze of the
readers. Not surprisingly, the text on the right got more attention from the eyes
when the baby’s eye gaze was in that direction.
An eye-tracking study by James Breeze shows the influence of eye gaze in guiding the viewer’s eye on the page. Eye gaze in
presentation visuals may have similar influences on the viewers’ attention.
Presentation Design: Principles and Techniques
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