The Impact of Advertising Location and User Task on the Emergence of Banner Ad Blindness: An Eye-Tracking Study

The purpose of this study is to explore the emergence of ad banner blindness in the viewing of e-commerce home pages. Building on the literature on inattention blindness and banner blindness, this article assessed the gaze path of users in goal-directed and free-viewing tasks when viewing pages with advertising banners on the right side of the page and on the top of the page above the main navigation menu. The hypotheses are tested using an analysis of variance. Using an eye-tracking methodology, the results identify significant differences in visual attention for banner ad location and for task type. Banner blindness is strongest for advertising banners on the right side of the page and for goal-directed tasks. Neither participants' ratings of page visual appeal or of page familiarity could explain the findings. The study contributes to the existing literature by resolving some of the cognitive factors that lead to banner blindness and supplementing previous research that focused on relevant perceptual factors.