The bottom line is that nobody is reading every detail while browsing through sites. You know you don’t. So what do you do? You start scanning. You start looking for any little thing that catches your eye and you begin to focus on that.
What catches your eye?
Anything can catch your eye, depending on what you’re looking for. Maybe you need to know if you’re in the right spot, so you scan for a logo or some other indication. Maybe you need to find something and are looking for a search box or a specific item. Whatever you are looking for, your eyes are scanning the page looking for it.
However, it's a little more complex. When browsing, you get impatient - especially when you’re stuck on a clustered site where the answer isn't right in front of you. You don't sit, think, and read the entire page. Instead, you click on the first thing that even slightly resembles what you are looking for, and before you know it, you end up lost.
For more information on scanning, check out this link: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/whyscanning.html
Designers need to understand scanning and its implications on design. They need to implement specific techniques into a design so users can scan and find the information they are looking for. Certain information on a page may be more important than other information. Designers must focus a user’s attention on the most important points, and those points should be found easily through scanning.
