Newspaper readers finished articles slightly quicker than iPad readers, who were more likely to skim content than to read it fully. Newspaper readers also had better retention, with 90% remembering what they read on paper compared to 70% of users of the iPad. See some of their videos after the jump.

Here is the video of eye-tracking with an iPad:

And a physical newspaper:

Google did some eye-tracking research of its own in 2009 and found that most users stayed on the top of the page when viewing search results and followed an F-shaped pattern down the page.

For developers, publishers and advertisers looking to get some user experience information through eye-tracking, a startup called YouEye can provide eye-tracking through Web cams. The startup was at the LAUNCH conference in February and is still in beta.

In typical Google fashion, the company will begin to roll these new features out today and they should be available to all Gmail users by tomorrow. For now, the new version of Contacts will not be available to Google Apps users.

Contacts Gets an Updates

As Benjamin Grol, Google's product manager for Gmail Contacts, told us yesterday, the team approached the Contacts updates and Gmail's redesign with two themes in mind: simplicity and consistence with Gmail and other Google apps.

The commitment to simplicity can be seen in the new modeless user interface for Contacts, for example, which now allows users to edit any field while browsing contacts without having to switch to an edit mode. As Grol pointed out, switching between modes makes sense on a mobile phone, but by going to a modeless user interface on the desktop, Google can save users a few clicks and make editing contacts a lot easier.

The notes feature in Contacts is still just a plain text editor, though Grol pointed out that Google is thinking about turning this into a more fully-featured rich-text editor that will turn Contacts into a better CRM solution.

Gmail Interface Tweaks

Rumors about this update to Gmail's interface started circulating earlier this month when a Google employee mistakenly posted a screenshot of the new design. The most noticeable change is Google's decision to move Contacts and Tasks up to the top of the left sidebar and to move the "compose mail" and "add contact" buttons underneath these top-level navigation links. This change makes the look-and-feel of Gmail more consistent with Google Calendar and other Google applications. As Grol noted, this new design also emphasizes that Contacts and Tasks are first-class citizens in Gmail.

The updated design also introduces a few smaller changes. Instead of the list of links that allowed users to select messages (all, none, read, unread, starred, unstarred), for example, the new interface now utilizes a drop-down menu. This, according to Google, means that the first message now appears about 16 pixels higher than before.

Domain Task Pages for Cars

Whenever a user searches for cars and car-related topics ("2010 Toyota Camry specs," for example), Bing will now bring up a page will all of the car's specs instead of directing you to another site with this info. This page will also include links to additional images and videos about the car, as well as the ability to restrict the search query by different trims and links to the specs of cars in the same class.

In Microsoft parlance, these pages are called "domain task pages" and chances are that - if successful - the company plans to roll out more of these for additional topics in the near future. The task pages are part of Bing's efforts to provide users with specialized answers for popular queries in verticals like weather. According to a recent job posting, other topics for these pages that Microsoft plans to launch in the future could include "movies, music, games and other high-volume domains." Given that Bing bills itself as a "decision engine," it only makes sense for Microsoft to try to capture as many popular searches as possible and present its users with relevant answers right on Bing.com instead of sending them on to other sites.

Sports Comparison and UI Changes

A small number of Bing users will now also be able to compare the performance of sports teams by simply typing the name of two teams in the search form. As Stefan Weitz, Microsoft's Director of Bing, also told us during a briefing earlier this month, about 0.7% of all queries on Bing are comparison searches and the company hopes to capture more of these in the future and present the right answer in Bing instead of sending users to multiple sites.

The same number of users (about 5%) will now also see a new user interface for the boxes at the top of the page that Bing will often display for popular topics. For searches related to cities and towns, for example, these "Bing boxes" will now include info about local weather, a relevant link to Bing Maps, as well as airfare info from your current location (based on your IP address). For popular artists, these boxes will now also include information about upcoming concerts and other relevant information. Sadly, this concert info is based on chronology and doesn't take a user's current location into account.

Overall, these are interesting updates - not necessarily because Bing now knows a lot more about cars and sports, but because they show the direction the Bing team is going in. As a "decision engine," the Bing team's intend is to give users more information directly on the site instead of just presenting them with a couple of links. While these links can be relevant (and Bing still shows them most of the time, too), the Bing team wants to reduce the number of queries that result in links and increase the number of times the software can present users with direct answers Microsoft has sourced from its own databases or from sources across the Internet.

FriendFeed has regularly made changes to its UI, but this new design is clearly the biggest change yet.

If you follow a lot of users on FriendFeed, the first impression of the new interface will most likely be negative. The new design emphasizes a real-time stream of all of your activity, in what can probably best be described as a mashup of the old UI with FriendFeed's old real-time stream, but with the addition that complete posts now bubble up to the top, instead of just individual comments and likes.

The new sidebar now includes links to direct messages that have been addressed to you, as well as links to your filters and groups. Most importantly, it also includes a link to a feed with all the posts you actively participated in - which makes the often chaotic feel of the main stream more manageable.

Direct Messages

One of the most important features on the new FriendFeed is the addition of direct messages. Unless you choose to publish your messages to the 'main feed,' they will stay private. Direct messages can be addressed to multiple users, which will make them quite useful for impromptu group discussions. Of course, this also makes FriendFeed a bit more like Twitter.

Filters

The new advanced filters that FriendFeed has introduced in this release make it a lot easier to create streams that only include updates with (or without) certain keywords, or which have a specific number of likes or comments. These searches can also be restricted to specific groups and friends. For power users, this might just turn into one of the most important new features on FriendFeed.

More Changes

A few more changes:

• by default, direct posts to FriendFeed are now automatically CC'd to Twitter
• the icons that used to announce where an item was coming from are now gone
• rooms are now 'filters'
• the search function auto-completes names of your friends
• in addition to subscribing to a users' feed, you can now also subscribe to their comments and likes
• date stamps are now permalinks

Mainstream?

While the new FriendFeed interface will probably be at least somewhat controversial, we especially wonder if this will help FriendFeed to grow beyond its current base of dedicated users. One complaint about the old FriendFeed interface was that it was overwhelming for new users. We are not sure that the constant stream of updates will make the service any more inviting.

It's Growing On Us

For most hardcore FriendFeed users who have friended a lot of other users, the default real-time stream is almost unmanageable, but the FriendFeed team has smartly added the 'My discussions' section. This section takes some of the craziness out of the main feed - but at the expense of missing out on new discussions.

Our first reaction to the new interface was quite negative - the stream is overwhelming and the new interface does take some getting used to (especially the odd color choices). It might take a few days of continuous usage before we can really give a final verdict, but over the last few hours, the new UI has definitely grown on us, and with a few more keyword searches and lists, we should be able to wrangle a semblance of normalcy out of the chaotic real-time stream.

By the way, if you don't like the colors of the new design, here is a Greasemonkey script from AJ Batac that brings together the colors of the old FriendFeed design and the new real-time UI.

Also, here are a few more interesting reactions to the new design:

Louis Gray: FriendFeed Reloads With Real-Time At Its Core

Hutch Carpenter: Taking Realtime Aim at Facebook

Robert Scoble: New Friendfeed: Twitter that Moves? Facebook filtering before Facebook?

Here are some recent examples:

• Lisa: If i wanted updates on everyones status while it was happening, I would join Twitter.
• Judy: It stinks. Why mess with something if it's already working?
• Cassy: The new facebook is tooooo confusing and you cant find anything~!!! are you going to change it back???
• Arie: Everytime I see the new layout a part of me dies on the inside.

We also created a word cloud with keywords from the most recent comments on the voting application, which clearly demonstrates the current sentiment about the real-time homepages among Facebook users.

When Facebook announced the change, it also added notifications about the impending update to the homepages on every user's profile. Still, a large number of users were obviously taken by surprise when their beloved Facebook pages suddenly changed.

Users don't like change, and as a product becomes more popular, users will grow ever more resistant to change. During the last major controversy around Facebook, when Facebook changed its Terms of Service, the company argued that it was quite aware that its users feel a sense of ownership over Facebook, so it will be interesting to see how Facebook will react to the current outcry.