Instagram has become a vital platform for museums and galleries to connect with the public. For the National Gallery of Indonesia (Galnas), Instagram serves as a key medium for sharing exhibition information and engaging with art enthusiasts. But how effective is this platform in capturing user attention? To answer this, a study by Desy Novita Sari, Clarissa Prameswari, and Isa Anshori, titled Beyond the Scroll: Eye-Tracking Evaluations on the National Gallery of Indonesia’s Instagram, was conducted using RealEye, to analyze how users engage with Galnas' Instagram page.
Researchers used RealEye to capture eye-tracking data as participants performed specific tasks related to content exploration and identification. Unlike traditional in-lab eye-tracking setups, RealEye allowed the experiment to be conducted remotely, with participants accessing the platform via laptops equipped with webcams.
The participants, 10 followers of the Galnas Instagram page (7 women, 3 men), were divided into two age groups: 18–24 years (Gen Z) and 25–34 years (millennials). This segmentation reflected Instagram’s user demographics and provided insights into possible age-based differences in browsing behavior.
Participants were given 100 seconds to complete each of the following five tasks:
While participants browsed, RealEye tracked their gaze position, fixation points, and gaze frequency. This approach enabled researchers to measure how long users focused on specific content, where their attention was drawn, and how it shifted during each task. The data collected included gaze counts, fixation counts, and other key metrics, which were used to analyze how effectively Galnas' Instagram content captured user attention. Here are the most important metrics captured using RealEye:
These metrics provided a comprehensive view of how users navigated, viewed, and engaged with the Instagram page, helping to identify patterns in attention and content interaction.
The study produced several important insights about user interaction with the Galnas Instagram page.
1. Attention Was Focused on Visual Content - heatmaps revealed that participants' attention was drawn to visual elements like images, videos, and captions, while other areas of the screen (like the background) received less attention. During Task 1 (explore freely), participants focused on videos, especially content in the central area of the screen, highlighting the importance of video content placement for engagement.
2. Older Participants Showed More Engagement - age-related differences were observed in gaze count and fixation count. Participants in the 25–34 age group had more frequent and prolonged fixations than those in the 18–24 age group. This suggests that older users are more methodical and deliberate in their engagement with content, while younger users tend to scroll more quickly.
3. Limited Time Was a Barrier to Engagement - tasks were capped at 100 seconds each, but this time frame was too short for some tasks. For example, when asked to identify the most engaging and least engaging content, many participants struggled to complete the task within the time limit. This highlights that user engagement with art content may require more time, especially when the task requires deeper cognitive processing.
4. Exhibition Content Captured More Attention than Individual Artworks - exhibition-related content (like event announcements) received more attention than individual art pieces. This is likely due to the prominence of exhibition content on the Galnas Instagram feed and the way it is visually framed. Participants quickly recognized exhibitions but took longer to assess and identify individual art pieces.
5. User Behavior Followed a Consistent Scanning Pattern
Participants displayed a pattern of rapid scanning, with an average of 27 gaze points per second. This rapid scanning behavior is typical of social media usage, where users browse large amounts of content quickly. However, during tasks that required more cognitive engagement (like selecting the "most engaging" or "least interesting" content), users exhibited slower, more focused gazes, especially older participants.
Using RealEye’s eye-tracking technology, the study revealed how users interact with the Galnas Instagram page. Visual content like images, videos, and captions attracted the most attention, while exhibition-related content outperformed individual art pieces. Age differences were notable, with older users showing higher fixation counts and more deliberate browsing behavior.
These findings suggest that visual presentation, video content, and user segmentation play a critical role in social media engagement for museums and galleries. By focusing on visual storytelling and tailoring content for different user demographics, Galnas can optimize its content strategy and boost audience engagement.
Take a look on our Instagram Mockups feature or follow the steps below to start your own experiment with RealEye:
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