Using an eyetracker it is possible to record exactly where a person is looking as he or she is interacting with some kind of visual display. For example, say a person is navigating a website, looking to purchase an item online. With eye-tracking, it is possible to see exactly where this person is looking for specific information about the item, how they compare different items, and where they look to navigate to the shopping cart or other areas of the site.

The user’s point of gaze is superimposed on a video recording of the website as they interact with it. In this way, it is possible for developers to interact with the interface through the eyes of the user. It is possible to see objectively if a user has difficulty locating information, if they miss critical information, or have trouble navigating.

The eye patterns can also be plotted on a bitmap in order to look at a viewing history spanning several seconds or longer. GazeTraces™ document the scanning behavior of a single participant scanning a single screen display or portion of it. This allows you to see clearly what on the page first caught the attention of the user, what elements he missed, and what elements may have been confusing. ETI offers a number of graphical representations of eye-movement data to answer your research questions.

At EyeTracking, Inc., researchers have taken eye-tracking to a new level, using changes in the pupil to measure objectively individual engagement with the test interface. Traditional approaches pose subjective questions during testing to probe user experience:

• From a scale of 1 to 10, how difficult was it for you to complete this task?
• To what extent do you agree with this statement: I liked design 1 more than design 2.

Yet this approach is typically invasive and results are inaccurate. It creates an unnatural and sometimes threatening environment for the user. Users frequently respond with what they think the researcher wants to hear, not with their honest experience.

A more objective approach is to measure directly what is taking place inside the mind of the user, as it is happening. Until recently, this could only be done with expensive and obtrusive systems (EEG, fNIR, fMRI, etc.). EyeTracking, Inc. has developed and patented the methods to test in real time the cognitive activity of a user as he or she engages with the interface. Abrupt changes in pupil diameter indicate current levels of mental effort put forth by the user. As a result, it is possible to observe in real time when an interface becomes difficult to use, without having to interrupt the user. At the same time, the point of gaze metric highlights specific elements causing the difficulty.