Saccadic eye movements are a kind of movement that is mentally targeted well before the cross hairs of the eyes are aligned with them. We know where we will look before the sharp, machinelike movement of our eyes look there. This type of eye movement happens a lot faster and far less cognitively than our radar of conscious understanding.

We are all familiar with advertisers using this technique in magazines, newspapers, etc. to attract our attention to what they want us to do or buy. We also recognize images or advertisements that appear to be very busy and our eyes don't know where to go first or what to look for.

The internet is a common place to find companies planning ahead with saccadic eye movement in mind. The two examples above, America Online & EarthLink both take different approaches to this.

The AOL web site draws yours to the yellow guy pointing towards the "sign up now" button. Then your eye moves on over to the orange "Try AOL Today" box. AOL takes a very aggressive approach to getting you to do what they want you to do, by drawing your attention to these brightly colored boxes.

The EarthLink web site first draws your attention to the woman standing in a bright white shirt with the orbit going around her. The orbit then directs your eyes over to the text "EarthLink Dial-Up." EarthLink takes a more indirect approach in an attempt to get you to signup. After looking at those two main objects, your eye movement is then dispersed, most likely to the three boxes with people in them.

Both companies use the viewer's saccadic eye movement to direct them through out their web sites. It is even done on this page to draw your attention into the middle.