Effectiveness of Information Posters Investigated with Eye-tracking Technology

Information-based tools are often used in public organisations to persuade changes in its audiences’ behaviours, especially for influencing their thinking, knowledge, or beliefs towards a particular behaviour to attain desired policy goals. Direct implementation of specific regulations to prohibit behaviours inflicts a perceived loss of freedom, and the effect of incentive rewarding approaches often fades with time. Hence, without using prohibitions or time-consuming and costly methods, information-based tools such as information posters provide a cost-effective and convenient way to achieve the desired outcome. Yet the effectiveness of informationbased tools is questioned. Specifically, optimal designs that give higher rates of effectiveness remain unexplored.

Professor Richard M WALKER, Dean of CityU’s College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences and Chan Hon Pun Professor of Behavioural and Policy Sciences, along with Dr Dannii YEUNG, Associate Professor of the Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences, addressed this concern in their article by investigating and comparing different designs and components of eco-information posters that lead to changes in the audiences’ behavioural intentions to perform proenvironmental activities.

To understand the effectiveness of various components in information posters, using eye-tracking technology, the study examined how university students looked at posters promoting environmental behaviours on recycling, energy use, and food waste. Their behavioural intention to perform the three types of proenvironmental activities were also measured before and after the eye-tracking experiment. The findings reveal a number of practical implications. First, the study found that slogans were the first and most impactful component of an information poster that students would look at. Second, poster designs that had positive slogans and negative images were remembered the most. Third, for the students who held negative attitudes towards environmental behaviour before the experiment, the image component of posters showed more potential for behavioural change, but not for those who had positive attitudes. This finding suggests that posters should be nuanced and tailored to specific target audiences.

The study provides implications for policymakers to decide what specific features and components to include during information poster development for different purposes. The study also provides a glimpse of how eye-tracking technology can provide insight beyond traditional observational methods to assist with research and development for organisations that utilise posters as a means to convey important messages to the public.