In September 2012, 3 prototype home page designs were tested. Participants were invited from website visitors. Those who agreed were randomly brought to one of 3 different click tests. Each test presented the same 8 tasks, but with different versions of the home page. This way, each version could be compared against the others.

One task was designed specifically to test the rotating feature. The task was to learn more about something that was presented on screen in a feature. The goal was to learn not only how effective the feature was as a whole, but also which components of the feature were the most effective.

"You’ve heard that the Department has developed a new variety of the Sea-Buckthorn berry. Where would you click to get more information about it?"

Note: These results are focused only on clicks on the feature itself - in each case, users sometimes clicked on other options on the page. We've left those results out because they're not relevant to the question at hand.

• 9 clicks on the image
• 36 clicks on the title
• 0 clicks on the text

• 8 clicks on the image
• 69 clicks on the title
• 3 clicks on the text

• 23 clicks on the image
• 10 clicks on the text
• 50 clicks on the "read more" link

• Depending on the design, from 6% to 20% of clicks on the feature were on the image.
• Most people clicked the part of the text with an underline (that is, that looked like a link).
• When there was a title over the text part, 26% of people clicked it even if it wasn't underlined.