This is the current state of the front page for me (with smut stories filtered out).
First thing my eyes do is glance left to right on the trending line.
Then there are four covers in particular that my eyes stop on: reincarnated as an op dungeon, waking up as a spaceship, reincanated as the universe, and dimensional demonic. Two of them have very prominent easy to read titles, and two of them are simple covers with anime characters in the center.
Next I spot beastborne, tree of aeons and arknights, because bright colors.
Last, I spot the administrator.
I got reincarnated and reincarnated as a spider both fail to catch my eye.
That whole series of stories with the default cover are getting integrally ignored. I will sometimes check out an individual story with a default cover, but when I see an entire series of them in a row they might as well be white space.
Out of these, I've clicked on waking up as a spaceship, reincarnated as a spider and arknight, but I've read none of them. Reincarnated as a spider caught my interest because it reminded be of Kumo Desu Ga which I have read and loved, I'm still considering checking it out some day if my reading list ever runs out (haha as if), Arknight because I quickly dabbled in the game it's a fanfic of, but just like the game I didn't investigate further than the synopsis, and waking up as a spaceship I've gone as far as asking my friends if they've read it and would recommend it.
So, what kind of covers do I spot? Bright colors, and/or good composition, and/or bold title, and/or single centered character looking at the camera.
Out of those, which do I click on? The ones that seem like they would contain one of the themes I'm interested in, or that contain something I recognize.
And past this step, this is no longer the work of the cover to grab me, but the synopsis.