{"id":841,"date":"2012-05-24T19:35:06","date_gmt":"2012-05-25T02:35:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nadynerichmond.com\/blog\/?p=841"},"modified":"2012-05-24T19:35:06","modified_gmt":"2012-05-25T02:35:06","slug":"bad-research-about-linkedin-and-profile-photos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nadynerichmond.com\/blog\/2012\/05\/24\/bad-research-about-linkedin-and-profile-photos\/","title":{"rendered":"bad research about LinkedIn and profile photos"},"content":{"rendered":"

This morning, I woke up to something that made me quite cranky: bad research. \u00a0Business Insider<\/a> posted an article titled\u00a0This Heatmap Proves That Looks Are The Most Important Thing On Your LinkedIn Profile<\/a>, which refers to a study done by TheLadders titled\u00a0Keeping\u00a0an eye on\u00a0recruiter\u00a0behavior<\/a> (pdf).<\/p>\n

The heatmap, which was created by using an eyetracker to determine where users look on the screen and how long they spend their time there, is an awesome example of bad research. \u00a0The article shows exceptionally bad analysis from Business Insider. \u00a0Here’s how it goes off-base:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The heatmap ignores all known research about how people read screens. \u00a0In short, people scan the screen, and they start scanning in the upper-left corner. \u00a0In some 2006 research from the Nielsen Norman Group<\/a>, they say that web users tend to scan pages using an F pattern<\/a>. \u00a0Any designer who has been designing for more than ten microseconds knows that the upper-left corner is the most prime real estate in their design. \u00a0Given that LinkedIn’s profile pictures are in the upper-left corner of the profile, it is no surprise at all that the heatmap shows that it’s where everyone starts.<\/li>\n
  2. The heatmap ignores research about photographs on webpages. \u00a0To again point to the NNG, they published some eyetracking research in 2010 that shows that photographs of real people get the most attention on some types of websites<\/a>. \u00a0So again, it’s no surprise that the heatmap shows that a real photograph gets the most attention.<\/li>\n
  3. The research does nothing to determine if moving the photograph elsewhere would have an impact on the amount of time that’s spent viewing the photograph. \u00a0The research that I cited in the second point implies that it wouldn’t, but it also appears from the report that all of the photographs that were used in their research started in the upper-left and continued on down the leftmost column, which is where the eye tends to fall naturally anyway. \u00a0To prove that the amount of time spent on the photograph is disproportionate, they would have had to do a separate eyetracking study that used a mockup of LinkedIn profiles where the photograph was placed elsewhere and compared the results.<\/li>\n
  4. The assertion of Business Insider about attractiveness aside, the research doesn’t appear to have actually considered the attractiveness of the person in the photograph. \u00a0The research did not compare profiles with less-attractive photos to those with more-attractive photos. \u00a0They just proved that recruiters spend time looking at the picture, not that attractiveness had anything to do with it.<\/li>\n
  5. The research doesn’t discuss profiles without photos. \u00a0Do those profiles not get as much attention?<\/li>\n
  6. The research did nothing to prove that there is a difference in outcomes. \u00a0They had recruiters look at the profiles, but it doesn’t appear that they were doing it with a specific goal of finding someone to contact about a position. \u00a0To prove that the photograph matters, as Business Insider asserts, you would have to show that people who are similarly qualified but have a better photograph are the ones who are selected to be contacted by the recruiter. \u00a0And you’d have to do this across at least three types of profiles: ones with an attractive photo, a not-attractive photo, and without a photo.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    What I find especially amusing is that the original research from TheLadders says this:<\/p>\n

    LinkedIn\u2019s profiles had higher levels of visual complexity, and their ease of use suffered\u00a0substantially as a result. Advertisements and \u201ccalls-to-action\u201d created clutter that reduced\u00a0recruiters\u2019 ability to process the profiles. Finally, eye tracking-based \u201cheat maps\u201d of LinkedIn\u00a0profiles showed that recruiters fixated for an\u00a0average 19% of the total time spent \u2013 on profile pictures, instead of examining other vital\u00a0candidate information.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    TheLadders’ recommendation is that you use their profile service instead of LinkedIn’s, and also that you have your resume professionally written, which (conveniently) is a service that they provide. \u00a0So we’re not exactly talking about unbiased research to begin with, although the assertions made by Business Insider are pretty unrelated to the original research. \u00a0I can only hope that Vivian Giang<\/a>, the author of the Business Insider article, only saw that heatmap of the LinkedIn profile and somehow didn’t have an internet connection so that she could spend the three seconds necessary to find the original research.<\/p>\n

    Bad research and bad analysis, all wrapped up in one package. \u00a0How appalling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    This morning, I woke up to something that made me quite cranky: bad research. \u00a0Business Insider posted an article titled\u00a0This Heatmap Proves That Looks Are The Most Important Thing On Your LinkedIn Profile, which refers to a study done by TheLadders titled\u00a0Keeping\u00a0an eye on\u00a0recruiter\u00a0behavior (pdf). The heatmap, which was created by using an eyetracker to … Continue reading bad research about LinkedIn and profile photos<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ux"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nadynerichmond.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nadynerichmond.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nadynerichmond.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nadynerichmond.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nadynerichmond.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=841"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nadynerichmond.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":842,"href":"https:\/\/www.nadynerichmond.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841\/revisions\/842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nadynerichmond.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nadynerichmond.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nadynerichmond.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}