The web has certainly become more powerful with developers able to provide users with a range of novel and interactive features.  Whilst it can be tempting to think such functionality is purely additive, a recent study finds that they impose a cognitive burden on users that can result in them not paying attention to what really matters.

“Interactivity can enhance your cognitive capacity for information that is presented in an interactive fashion, but that enhancement of cognitive capacity doesn’t translate into encoding of everything else on the page,” the authors say. “In fact, it seems to be depriving the cognitive resources that you would have otherwise allocated to non-interactive content.”

Striking a balance

The research tested the memory of participants as they browsed various kinds of e-commerce sites.  The tests involved various forms of memory recall.

Here’s the thing.  When information was presented in an interactive tool, the memory of that information increased, but it came at a cost, as memory of other parts of the site went down considerably.

This would be ok if important information was not so frequently outside of interactive portions of our websites, with this equally important for news and information sites as it is for commerce sites.

“You could consider this a headlining effect,” the researchers advise. “Journalists influence user attention by sizing their headlines accordingly. And, likewise, by showcasing information with a lot of interactive tools, you’re telling the user to ‘pay attention, pay attention,’ but that means you may be asking them not to pay attention to other content.”

Using interaction wisely

The interactive tools were undoubtedly useful however, and the authors do advocate using them on your site, albeit wisely and strategically.  If done the correct way, it could help the user understand the importance of certain bits of content.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, this stickiness was not confined to our attention, with the study also finding that we tend to spend much longer on interactive parts of a site than their non-interactive parts.  Things aren’t always that straightforward however, with an apparent sweetspot being relatively low, and extra interactive content actually turning people off.

“This further implies that overly interactive tools may consume too many mental resources and even deprive users’ interest in exploring the rest of the page. Site and app designers need to be really careful about how much emphasis to put on interactive features,” the authors write.

All of which should provide some food for thought the next time you’re designing your own website.