No. 33 Using eye tracking to improve your website(June 13, 2006)
Several times in the past, this column has discussed the importance of emphasizing behavior rather than opinions when looking at consumer needs and perceptions.
For instance, in usability testing and web analytics, deriving patterns from user behavior revealed in the results of your survey and then analyzing those patterns has proven to be a very effective method for understanding user needs and the perceptions behind those patterns.
Now, the technique which is garnering a lot of attention is eye tracking.
Eye tracking is a method of measuring the movement and fixation point of the human eye.
As the Japanese saying goes, "The eyes are as eloquent as the tongue." In surveys, there is a strong tendency for subjects to control the "tongue" part as they please, in other words to control their utterances or words. In contrast, it is also said that "eyes", or line of vision, provide a way of extracting information that can help grasp a person's reflexive actions, even without his or her realization.
A decade ago, participants of an eye tracking study had to wear goggles that had a small camera attached to them, and many questioned the reliability of the results of studies conducted under such unnatural conditions. However, recent eye tracking, especially when conducted using a computer screen, can be used under very everyday conditions.
Since the burden placed on survey participants has been decreased, beBit has introduced eye tracking and is researching the range of its uses.
Since eye tracking reveals what the user is and is not looking at, this method is useful in verifying interface composition, layout, and design. For instance, banners and site branding areas which have been created to stand out are often completely ignored if they are not what the user needs.
Eye tracking also enables you to learn what users needs are by analogy from the places they look, the order in which they view things, and the fixation rate. Also, since this type of study provides results on the line of sight, it allows you to speculate what a participant was thinking about during the study even if they are not good at expressing themselves, by comparing the subject's actual behavior on the site with the eye tracking results.
As you can see, eye tracking is a very attractive study method since it adds new perspective to the types of studies conducted thus far. That said, it is risky to depend solely on eye tracking in order to improve your site's usability or study user needs. Just as with other techniques, eye tracking has its own limitations.
With eye tracking, while it is possible to obtain factual data such as the actual movement of the eye or finding out where a subject was looking, the data shows simply how the eye moved or where the person looked and does not allow you to grasp what the person was really looking at (or perceiving).
In an actual eye tracking study of the movie page of GyaO, though the subject's line of vision was focused on the movie information (see figure), the subject often had no memory whatsoever of it when asked about it.
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Order and duration of visual attention |
Fixation rate |
Furthermore, even if results show that the subject viewed a certain object, eye tracking is unable to tell you whether the object was perceived to be pleasant or unpleasant. To continue the example, if the object was seen as pleasant, you cannot improve your site using this data unless you have some insight into why the subject felt that way.
Given these limitations, it is important do a comprehensive analysis by having the factual data about eye movement gained through your eye tracking study, the log data which will be your quantitative evidence, and a qualitative study via usability testing which will help derive the psychology behind the behavior.
By doing so, you will be able to dramatically and elaborately understand and have insight into human cognitive behavior on websites. In this respect, eye tracking is very innovative.
Eye tracking data, brought about by advances in technology and able to provide supplementary information, holds great potential in bringing about further advancements and refinement in internet media.
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