NextStage Evolution/Global founder Joseph Carrabis blogs a lot about website usability and design. In his latest post he drops the lowdown about how our brains are wired to point our eyes wherever other folks are pointing theirs. Here’s the explanation why:

The reason this little game works is because human beings started off as herd and prey animals. Not only that, we were secretive little creatures for several million years of evolutionary history and all of this makes itself known in how our brains are wired to respond to, internalize and use information in our environment.

Our ancestors had to be constantly on guard for lions, tigers and bears. If Og the caveman was talking with me and suddenly looked over my shoulder, he might be seeing a predator. That was extremely useful information to our ancestors, so following Og’s gaze and looking where he looked was a good survival skill.

The point of his article was to explain how selection and placement of photos on a webpage (or in any media) can affect the user’s experience and actions. If you include a photo of people on your site, our eyes follow theirs! So where are they looking? I think good designers are aware of that, whether they know it or not. They can just feel the way the page is working.

Now that Mind & Media is setting up content management systems (CMS) for clients, I couldn’t help but draw a connection between Joseph’s article and the ease of editing a CMS. Certainly a huge advantage of a CMS is that any layperson, with almost zero training, can add or edit website content. It’s a tremendous way to speed site development!

However, while that may be great for dissemination of information, it could be detrimental to promoting message or inspiring action. What you see as snapshots of the latest networking event could actually be steering users away from your “Join Now!” button. The ability to easily edit a page does not equate to the ability to effectively design a page. So think about your purpose.

If your purpose is to quickly spread information, particularly to an audience that is eager to get to it, then a blog or other CMS may be great for you. If your purpose is to convince, persuade, sell, or motivate, then a properly composed page, or precisly cropped and placed photo, could be the difference between your audience’s eyes being drawn to your call to action or away from your site entirely.