Does Web Design Matter? Examining Older Adults’ Attention to Cognitive and Affective Illustrations on Cancer-Related Websites through Eye Tracking

Abstract

This study examines how adults pay attention to cognitive and affective illustrations on a cancer-related webpage and explores age-related differences in the attention to these cognitive and affective webpages. Results of an eye-tracking experiment (n = 20) showed that adults spent more time attending to the illustrations on the cognitive webpage than the illustrations on the affective webpage. Furthermore, older adults spent about 65% less time fixating the webpages than younger adults. Whereas older adults had less attention for illustrations on the cognitive webpage then younger adults, they spent equal time viewing the illustrations on the affective webpage as younger adults.