C. Godart et al. (Eds.): I3E 2009, IFIP AICT 305, pp. 287–300, 2009. © IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2009 How to Research People’s First Impressions of Websites? Eye-Tracking as a Usability Inspection Method and Online Focus Group Research Csilla Herendy University of Pécs, Budapest, Hungary Abstract. The visual surface of the Hungarian governmental portal – magyaror- szag.hu – was inspected in 2007 with two different inspection methods: Eye tacking research and Online focus group research. Both methods help to under- stand and to chart not only the usability of different websites but also the affec- tive impressions associated with the websites. In this study, an Experimental and a Control-group were tested to assess the usability of the site and the emo- tional reactions to it. The results reveal that the Hungarian government website is too complicated, dull and difficult to apprehend at a glance. Keywords: Eye-tracking; online focus-group; website usability. 1 Introduction In this study, the Hungarian governmental portal, called magyarorszag.hu (in English: hungary.hu) was researched with the use of two different methods, eye tracking re- search and online focus-groups. The aims of this study were to investigate and assess the usability of the main page of the site and to survey the first impressions and the emotional reactions to the website. The ease (or difficulty) of finding different pieces of information on the site was tested, and users’ evaluations of the site as simple or too complicated were investigated. The survey focused on other question as well: the impressions users had of the civil servants who worked at the portal and of the Hun- garian administrative sector, after using the site and experiencing the user interface and the visual surface. The possible uses of different testing methods for websites are highlighted by vari- ous studies, such as Usability Inspection Methods [1], F-Shaped Pattern for Reading Web Content [2]. One of the most promising modern tools is eye tracking, as dis- cussed by, for instance, Nielsen [2], Duchowski [3]. These studies concentrate of the eye-movements of the users: how they look at web pages, what they read, what they don’t read, what they tend to notice or never see, etc. Using the eye tracking method, the aim of this survey was to reveal how users find certain information on the site and whether the site meets their general needs and expectations. In addition to the eye tracking method, online focus groups were used as well. The aim of applying the online focus group method was to obtain information about emo- tional reactions to the site in an effort to understand why the users liked or disliked