KPIs

Clarity

In short

Clarity is built from Focus and Spread. It is high when predicted attention concentrates on a few areas that sit close together. It does not read text or judge whether your message is understood. It is the KPI most sensitive to platform framing such as TikTok, because the interface competes for attention.

What it measures

Clarity measures how concentrated and how grouped the predicted attention is on your creative. It is high when the eye is likely to go to a few areas that sit close together. It is low when attention is scattered across many distant spots.

In other words, Clarity measures visual organisation and hierarchy. It is a good guide to "can the eye find the key element quickly?". It is not a test of:

• message comprehension: it does not judge whether people understand what you are saying,
• legibility: it does not read your text or check whether the copy is readable,
• format fit: it does not apply platform rules. It only reflects the creative as shown in the screen you picked, but a drop when your creative is framed in a platform screen can be a useful format-fit signal (see Why Clarity changes with TikTok and other platforms).

The attention KPI Clarity is not about emotions. It says nothing about how clear-cut the emotional response is.

What feeds it

Clarity is computed from the predicted attention map only. That is the prediction of where people are likely to look on the analysed screen.

How it's built

Clarity is built from two attention KPIs:

• Focus: how concentrated attention is, meaning how small an area draws the eye.
• Spread: how close together the main attention points are.

An ad with one strong focal point, such as a product on a clean background, scores high on both. An ad with a logo in one corner, a face in another and text at the bottom splits attention across distant points and scores lower.

Clarity is one of the two ingredients of Attention.

Scale and direction

ClarityImageVideo

How concentrated and grouped predicted attention is on the analysed screen.

Scale

0–100

Reading

Higher is better

Higher means more focused and better-grouped attention. Unlike the E-Score, it has no colour bands. Its chip shows whether it is above or below the comparison group, when there is one. It is built from components (Focus and Spread) that are positioned against reference creatives of the same media type.

Image vs video

The calculation is the same for images and videos. For videos, Clarity is also shown as a curve on the timeline.

Why Clarity changes with TikTok and other platforms

When you pick a platform, Foresight places your creative inside that platform's screen, for example the TikTok feed with its buttons, caption and call-to-action bar. It then predicts attention on the whole screen.

• Interface elements around and on top of your creative can draw attention themselves. They add or move the points where the eye lands.
• If your creative's shape does not match the platform's slot (for example a landscape video on TikTok, or a vertical video in a square feed post), the empty areas around it change the picture too.
• Clarity is built to detect exactly this: how concentrated and grouped attention is. That makes it the KPI most sensitive to the platform choice.

Meanwhile:

• Emotion KPIs change only slightly. Emotion is predicted on your original upload, and the platform adds only a small, fixed contribution from its own interface.
• Attention and the E-Score usually move less than Clarity, because Clarity is only one of the things they are built from.

What does not change: the attention model, the way Clarity is calculated, and the colour bands. With a platform selected, no benchmark value is shown, for images or videos. TikTok is available for videos. See TikTok and Platforms and benchmarks.

How to read it

• Low Clarity: attention is spread across too many distant elements. Check the heatmap to see what competes with your key element.
• High Focus, low Spread: attention lands on a few tight spots that are far apart.
• Clarity drops under a platform: the interface probably competes with your focal element, or your key element sits where the interface overlaps. It does not mean your message became less clear in itself.

Common pitfalls

• Clarity does not measure comprehension or legibility. A creative with a confusing message can still score high if the eye goes to one place.
• Do not compare framed and unframed runs. Clarity on the TikTok screen and Clarity on the bare creative describe two different screens.
• Clarity can jump. A small edit that adds or removes a competing area can move Spread, and so Clarity, a lot.