1 TRULY INTERACTIVE WEBSITES; AN EYE TRACKING APPROACH Polyxeni (Jenny) Palla, Rodoula H. Tsiotsou and Yorgos Zotos ABSTRACT Designing effective websites remains a challenging task for both academics and practitioners. Attention is the starting point of any further cognitive process. The present study makes an attempt to assess which elements in a website gain individuals’ attention by measuring actual behavior instead of self-reported data. An online experiment was conducted and an eye- tracking system was employed in order to track users’ attention to three interactive versions of a website that present a high involvement product. Data analysis establishes that five out of six web characteristics proposed by Voorveld et al. (2011) increase the perceived interactivity. In addition, it is reinforced the notion that online users are goal-oriented for high involvement product, since they allocate increased attention to the informational text provided in the homepage, regardless of the website interactivity level. Useful insights are provided for online marketers and academics regarding the elements that make a website truly interactive. INTRODUCTION Attention capture is the starting point of any further cognitive process according to hierarchy of effect advertising models (eg. AIDA proposed by Strong, 1925). So, understanding what attracts individuals’ attention in a website is of main importance since this will help digital marketers and academics not only to understand the underlying cognitive processes occurred in the online context but also to design more effective interactive websites. Kahneman (1973) (cited by Mackenzie 1986) defines attention as the amount of the mental effort or cognitive capacity devoted to a specific stimuli. Individuals sometimes pay more or sometimes less attention to different stimulus due to several reasons. First, people differ in their level of involvement. Highly involvement products motivate consumers to focus more processing resources to a stimulus leading to higher levels of attention (Petty and Cacioppo, 1986). Second, in the online environment, individuals tend to be more goal-oriented and tend to pay attention to the provided information (Stanaland and Tan, 2010). However, attention is limited and selective and only a piece of information on a web site gains users’ attention (Molosavljevic and Cerf, 2008). A website with an increased number of interactivity elements may distract the consumers’ attention, especially when it is visually complicate (Bezjian-Avery et al., 1998). Interactivity has been defined as “the immediately iterative process by which customers’ needs and desires are uncovered, met, modified, and satisfied by the providing firm” (Bezjian-Avery et al. 1998, p. 23). A growing number of internet-related literature distinct interactivity to actual and perceived (eg. Thorson and Rodgers, 2006; Wu, 2005; Voorveld et al., 2011). Actual interactivity is objectively assessed whereas perceived is subjectively experienced by the user. Recently, Voorveld et al (2011) point out six website elements that contribute positively to perceived interactivity [feedback form, product registration, product customization, information customization, tell a friend and dropdown menu].