The purpose of this research is to define and analyse how people read webpages, on desktop computers and mobile devices, and give valuable advice to what to do and what to avoid when designing for the web. This is not a technical usability guide, but more a collection of information that ought to be taken into consideration when designing websites with a special focus on business.

The study has been carried out with help of literature research about various eye-tracking and web usability studies, done in the field of web design, and practical user tests to validate that theoretical background. It shows how users interact with webpages such as where they start browsing, how much they read, what content they concentrate most on and what drives them away.

All of the studied researches agree on that there is a certain pattern on how people scan through webpages. This pattern can be clearly seen in Jacob Nielsen’s eye-tracking study displaying an F-pattern, meaning the users scanned through the content starting from the upper-left corner. Some researchers find cultural differences in how people read web content, but the truth remains the same: the upper and the left part of the page is looked more thoroughly. This means that the most important information that we want to give the user should always be on the top-left part of the page and the less important information should go to the bottom of the page.

The online readers should be kept in their comfort zone by keeping in mind where certain elements are expected to be, in order to enable smooth web browsing. Mobile users look for lean text and content that helps them to accomplish tasks efficiently. Any kind of advertisement is seen as an annoyance and can easily make a website look unprofessional. Consistency and simplicity should remain uniform throughout the page.