Eye Tracking Bing vs. Google: A First LookUser Centric, Inc., a user research firm based in Chicago, offers a glimpse into the battle between the newly launched Microsoft's Bing and the powerful incumbent, Google. As part of an independent, non-sponsored study, User Centric used eye tracking technology to capture 21 participants' eye movements as they completed two informational (e.g., "Learn about eating healthy") and two transactional (e.g., "Book a last minute vacation") search tasks in each engine.
Preliminary findings revealed comparable amount of visual attention on organic search results and top sponsored links across both search engines. Sponsored links on the right, however, attracted more attention on Bing than they did on Google. On average, across all four tasks, 42% of participants looked at Bing's sponsored links on the right; by contrast, only 25% of participants looked at Google's right rail links. According to Gavin Lew, Managing Director of User Centric, "This finding is especially important to search engine marketers who are paying for these spots. Our results suggest that Bing may be able to give them more bang for their buck."
User Centric also investigated two features that differentiate Bing from Google - flyouts that appear when users hover over individual search results and a category list displayed on the left.
Two-thirds of the participants triggered a flyout at least once during their sessions, which shows that they are easily activated. User Centric's Chief Scientist and eye tracking expert, Aga Bojko commented, "It was unexpected that so many users new to Bing stumbled upon the flyouts despite their hidden state." However, less than a quarter of participants actually looked at the flyouts they had triggered. Bojko remarked, "Ignoring flyouts is likely due to a tendency to devalue motion as a source of information on the Web."
The category list attracted much more attention than the flyouts. Across the four tasks, about half of the participants looked at the list, including three who used the tool to refine their search. Each participant who clicked on the categories reused them on subsequent searches, which suggests potential value.
User Centric plans to further investigate the discoverability of flyouts and their value proposition, as well as other Bing sections, such as Images, Videos, and News.
