<b>Hero images: the eye-tracking evidence that big stock photos can cost you</b>

<b>Hero images: the eye-tracking evidence that big stock photos can cost you</b>

Deep dive: The default lander has a large hero image. The research on how users treat images is more discriminating than "images grab attention."

Nielsen Norman's eye-tracking distinguished two image classes with opposite outcomes. Information-carrying images (a real product, a relevant person, a labeled diagram) get heavy fixation — users actively study them. Decorative/stock images (generic smiling team, abstract gradients, mood photography) get <i>ignored</i> — banner-blindness extends to anything that pattern-matches as filler. In one study, a real photo of a company's actual staff drew far more attention than a polished stock alternative in the same slot.

The cost isn't just the wasted pixels. A large decorative hero pushes your headline and call-to-action down, consuming the scarce first-screen real estate where the scroll decision is made. So a stock hero can be doubly negative: it's ignored, and it displaces the elements that aren't.

There's a second, subtler effect: gaze cueing. Eye-tracking shows users follow the gaze direction of a person in an image. A model staring at the camera holds attention on the face; a model looking <i>toward</i> your headline or form redirects fixation there. Same photo, different gaze, measurably different attention to the call-to-action.

For affiliate landers: a hero earns its first-screen cost only if it carries information or directs gaze toward the action. A generic stock human is often worth less than the headline space it steals.

TL;DR:
— Users study informative images and ignore decorative/stock ones (banner-blindness extends to filler)
— A big decorative hero is doubly bad: ignored, and it displaces the headline/CTA
— If you use a person, point their gaze at the CTA — gaze cueing redirects fixation