iPhone 6 Eye Tracking and the FOVIO Eye Tracker

iPhone 6

Scene Camera Data Collection – Mobile / Tablet Example

Testing on a monitor, testing with a projector, testing on a laptop, a Command and Control Station, a TV… the list goes on. Where ever a person meets machine, there is a way that eye tracking can be employed. As new interfaces and devices are released, eye tracking must evolve to ensure that it can be used easily with those devices.

The latest such device was released yesterday, and that’s when mine turned up in the mail – I am of course referring to the much anticipated iPhone 6. Here at EyeTracking, we have many customers that use our EyeWorks software to test mobile apps on a variety of devices. We ourselves, run usability services (using EyeWorks or course), for a range of companies testing mobile apps. As we had an iPhone 6 in hand, we thought we should perform a quick test to ensure that all is working well between EyeWorks and the latest top end phone on the market.  

For those that have not used the EyeWorks Scene Camera Module yet, it is the most easy to use and powerful scene camera solution on the market. We will get more into this in a future blog. Just to make things more interesting, we decided to use the newest eye tracker on the market –the much talked about FOVIO system from Seeing Machines. The first production system of FOVIO only started shipping to the research community this week too, so it seemed only too fitting to use it for this test.

Setup took around about 3 minutes, and we recorded simultaneous and synchronized high-definition videos of the iPhone 6 screen and Picture-in-Picture view of the subject’s hands. There is no geometry configuration needed, just click start, calibrate four points and everything else is running.

Click the embedded clip below to view the raw unedited video from our test. We’ll be sure to post more in the near future, so be sure to check back often and subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Contact our sales team if you are interested in learning more about EyeWorks or any of our other products and services.

Featured image from Unsplash.

EyeWorks™: Dynamic Region Analysis

Dynamic Region Analysis

There’s a lot to like about EyeWorks™. Its unique brand of flexible efficacy makes it an ideal software solution for eye tracking professionals in a variety of academic, applied and marketing fields. To put it simply, EyeWorks™ IS the collective expertise of EyeTracking, Inc., refined and packaged for researchers everywhere. In the coming months we will highlight a few unique features of EyeWorks™ in the EyeTracking Blog.

Dynamic Region Analysis (Patent Pending)

All good science must quantify results. Eye tracking research is no exception, be it academic, applied, marketing or any other discipline. Unless you have an objective way to evaluate the precise activity of the eye, there is little value in collecting such data. Thus, most eye tracking software offers the ability to draw regions (or AOIs, if you like) as a way to quantify the number and timing of data points within any static area. In other words, if you want to know how long the user of your training software spends viewing the dashboard, or when your website user sees the navigation, or how many eyes run across your magazine ad, you can simply draw the shape and let the software generate the results. This is quite useful, but there’s a limitation (hint: it’s underlined and bolded above). Yes, the operative word is static. Most eye tracking analysis software allows you to draw regions for static content only. That means no flash, no dropdowns, no mobile features of a simulation, no video, no objects moving in a scene camera view. As you can imagine, this seriously inhibits the ability of the researcher to quantify the results of any study of dynamic content.

…Unless that researcher is using EyeWorks, a software platform that does not limit regions to the static variety. Dynamic Region Analysis allows you to build regions that change shape, regions that move closer and farther away, regions that disappear and reappear. Generally speaking, any region that is visible at any time during your testing session can be tracked. This patent-pending feature has been part of EyeWorks for the past five years, and we’ve used it in analysis of video games, websites, television, simulators, advertisements, package design and sponsorship research. Because of EyeWorks, the results of these dynamic content studies include more than just approximations of viewing behavior and subjective counting of visual hits; they include detailed statistical analysis of precise eye activity. Our clients appreciate this distinction.

Here’s a video in case you are having trouble visualizing (so to speak) dynamic regions. We’ve taken a very subtle product placement scene from a film, and used EyeWorks’ Dynamic Region Analysis to identify the hidden advertising (outlined in green). In a study of this content, these regions would allow us to analyze precisely (1) when each product was seen, (2) how many viewers saw it and (3) how long they spend looking it. Click the embedded clip below and watch the dynamic regions in action.

This is yet another example of an area where other eye tracking software says “No Way,” and EyeWorks says “Way!” Contact our sales team if you are interested in learning more about EyeWorks or any of our other products and services.