Static & poster testing
See what people notice first on your poster
Show your poster, print ad or banner to the people you want to reach and ask them to click where their eye goes first. Then see whether they remember the brand, understood the offer and liked what they saw.
Summer, all day
Brand A123"What catches your eye first?"
- 1Headline24%
- 2Beach scene57%
- 3Logo6%
Share of first clicks, by drawn area
Why test the glance
A poster gets a glance, not a read
People pass a bus shelter or scroll past a banner in moments. In that time the brand and one idea have to land. If the eye stops on the model's face and never reaches the logo, better copy will not fix it. A heatmap shows where attention goes, and a few short questions show what stuck.
What can go on the bench
Poster by poster
What the eye found, and what stuck
Each row is one measure, named the way the report names it.
Base: Two groups of US adults who bought sunscreen in the past year; each saw one poster.
Shares of people. First look shows each drawn area's share of first clicks.
At the bus shelter
Watch a poster get its first look
- 01The design goes up
- 02Where does the eye go first?
- 03Areas and scores build up
- 04Did the brand land?
Step 1 / 4
The design goes up
Any image works. To test it in its setting, upload a picture of the design in place.
Study set-up
Static & poster testing
- StimulusTwo bus-shelter posters: one leads with the bottle, one with a beach scene
- WhoUS adults who bought sunscreen in the past year
- DesignTwo groups; each person sees one poster
- FirstClick where the eye goes first
- ThenFive short questions: brand, offer, liking, feeling
Set up with our team, or yourself in CatalyseAI
Step 2 / 4
Where does the eye go first?
People click the spot that catches their eye first, and the clicks build the heatmap.
Question 1 of 6
Click the spot that catches your eye first.
Tap once on the picture
Next"The beach. I wanted to be there."
"I saw the bottle, then the price."
"Was that for sunscreen or a beach trip?"
Step 3 / 4
Areas and scores build up
Draw boxes around the headline, the product and the logo, and each box gets its share of the clicks.
First clicks, as they arrive
Summer, all day
Brand ABeach-scene poster · share of first clicks, by drawn area
- 1Headline24%
- 2Beach scene57%
- 3Logo6%
- -Elsewhere13%
Each person clicks once: the spot that caught the eye first.
Step 4 / 4
Did the brand land?
Who named the brand, who got the offer, and which version people liked: side by side.
Step by step
From upload to heatmap
From the design to where the eye lands first.
- 01
Upload the design
Any image works: a poster, a print page, a display banner, a static social post or an in-store sign. To test it in its setting, upload a picture of the design in place, such as on a bus shelter or a magazine page.
- 02
Ask where the eye goes
People click the spot that catches their eye first. You decide whether they can mark one spot or several, and the clicks build the heatmap.
- 03
Ask what stuck
Short questions follow: which brand it was for, what it was offering, how much they liked it and how it made them feel.
- 04
Draw areas on the result
After fieldwork, draw boxes around the headline, the product shot or the logo. The report shows each box's share of the clicks.
- 05
Compare versions
Testing two or more designs? Each person sees only one, and the report sets the versions side by side with significance markers.
The fix
Example: two sunscreen posters
A sunscreen brand has two bus-shelter posters for early summer: one leads with the bottle, the other with a beach scene. Two groups of US adults who bought sunscreen in the past year each see one poster. They click what they notice first, then answer five short questions. The heatmap shows whether the eye ever reaches the brand name, and the open answers show which poster people read as being for families and which as being for sport.
Beach-scene poster
Move the logo
Liked more and stands out more, but only 6% of first clicks reach the logo.
Put the brand inside the scene.
Bottle-led poster
Clear but plain
More people name the brand and the offer, fewer like it.
Borrow its brand cue for the beach poster.
Ask the studyAnswers from your own data
Does the eye ever reach the brand on the beach poster?
Rarely. Only 6% of first clicks land on the logo, against 14% on the bottle poster. Most go to the beach scene, at 57%.
It checks its numbers against your data and draws the chart.
Outputs
What you get
Output 01
A heatmap of first looks
A heat overlay on your design, with an opacity slider and a larger view for presenting. It shows what people say caught their eye; it is not eye tracking.
Output 02
Clicks by area
A table of the areas you drew and the share of clicks in each, so a claim like "the headline drew most first looks" has a number behind it.
Output 03
Brand and offer results
Who named the right brand, who could say what was on offer, and how much people liked the design.
Output 04
Comments, themed
What people liked and what confused them, grouped into themes, with a word cloud of the words they used.
Output 05
Charts you can lift
Any chart as a PNG, a one-slide PowerPoint or a CSV, plus a full PowerPoint deck and an Excel workbook.
FAQ
Questions, answered
Can I limit how long people see the design, like a real glance?
Yes. A timed view shows the design for a set number of seconds before the questions, closer to a real glance.
Can people mark what they like and what they dislike?
Each click marks a spot, with no like or dislike tag. To get both, we ask two heatmap questions on the same image, one for what people like and one for what puts them off, and add an open question to hear why.
Which formats can I test?
Anything that can be shown as an image: posters, billboards, print pages, display banners, static social posts, flyers and in-store signs. Large formats such as billboards work best as a photo of the site, so people see them at a realistic size.
Can I test a design that is not finished?
Yes. A layout with the real headline and a stand-in image can show whether the structure works. People react strongly to the words, so use the real copy if you can.
Related
Goes well with
Put your next poster in front of real viewers
Send us the designs and tell us who should see them. We will set up the heatmap and the questions.
Nearest office: Orlando, FL (corporate office)