Eye-tracking workshop
How I evaluated three Prudential flyers to assess the clarity of
their design and messaging.
CONTEXT
During my internship, I was given three informational flyers, created by the Marketing department, and was tasked with investigating the clarity and effectiveness with which the intended message was communicated to the target audience.
THE FLYERS
The flyers in question were designed to reunite Prudential customers or their surviving family members with unclaimed
insurance policies that they may have lost track of, or not know are still active. The purpose of the flyers was to encourage customers to contact Prudential and get assistance with tracing the forgotten policies.
APPROACH
I began the project by recruiting 25 participants from different areas of the business and conducting live, in-person interviews. To complement the qualitative research, I used Tobii Studio, an eye-tracking and analysis tool. Tobii tracked the participants’ gaze across the flyers and generated heatmaps, helping me understand which areas captured their attention and where they spent the most time looking.
During the interviews, I used open-ended and probing questions to explore what participants liked and disliked about each flyer. Most importantly, I wanted to understand whether their message was clearly communicated and understood as intended.
I analysed the data by colour coding all positive and negative feedback against the main issues as identified below. I then cross-referenced these insights with the eye-tracking data, allowing me to identify recurring patterns and build a more comprehensive picture of how participants interpreted the flyers.
THE MAIN ISSUES
Once the interviews were complete, I had discovered the main sources of frustration among participants.
The headlines felt exclusionary and vague.
The headline “Did Dad have a Prudential policy?” was criticised for being exclusionary, as it focused solely on fathers and overlooked other family members. Headlines like "Have you seen me?" or "Remember me?" were considered confusing because readers associate such phrases with people rather than objects.
The logo placement was ineffective.
Placing the Prudential logo in the centre of the flyer was less effective than positioning it in the top-right corner. Participants found the central placement less intuitive, making it harder for readers to instantly recognize the brand.
The imagery felt disconnected from the text.
Eye-tracking gaze plots showed that participants consistently looked at the policy booklet imagery last. The visuals lacked a clear and immediate connection to the headlines, leaving readers uncertain about what they were being asked to look for and how the imagery related to the message.
The outdated contact options were easy to overlook.
The CTAs were buried in body text paragraphs, and the physical tear-off coupon slip at the bottom was largely overlooked or ignored as an outdated method compared to web or phone options.
RESULTS
Having identified the best and worst practices of each flyer, my solution looked at creating a hybrid of the three. I improved the copy to use more inclusive language, and by leveraging the data collected from the eye-tracker, I moved the logo, title and imagery to a more strategic position.
Check out the final deck I put together and presented to key marketing stakeholders at the end of the study.
SKILLS DEVELOPED
Tobii studio
User research
Conducting interviews
Insight gathering
Presentation skills
Flyer re-design