Eye Tracking History: What Have You Done For Me Lately?

In the last week we at Eye Tracking Update have been running through the history of eye tracking technology, talking about the early accomplishments and observations of Louis Emile Javal and eye tracking’s transition from its roots in the medical world, to its increased use by marketers and designers in the 1980s and into the 1990s.

Eye tracking, as a recent article on Uxbooth’s blog states, continued through the latter part of the century and eventually led to a ‘better understanding in how our eyes and minds cooperate in digesting literature, problems, and images.’ But, as the article goes on to say, it wasn’t until the early 90s that eye tracking began to heavily influence design and print.

NFL player and analyst Joe Theismann took part in an eye tracking experiment in 1990 along with average fans that regularly viewed professional football games. The eye tracking system, created by Gallup Applied Science, was used to film the game watchers’ eyes while a computer tracked where the eyes followed on the screen. After the game was over, a cursor displayed where viewers were looking for the duration of the game.

Larger organizations started to measure and study how users reacted to information online, and for a large number of web designers in the 1990s, print and/or newspaper design was really the go-to for web design. But, as we now know, web users look differently than print readers, and eventually, studies and our knowledge of how varying demographics see, began to influence web design, creating its own guidelines and culture.

A more recent study conducted in 2006 consisted of a research firm working with in-game advertising utilizing eye tracking. Three-dimensional virtual worlds make for a lot more real estate when it comes to advertising, and it was only a matter of time before marketers would see the evolving and novel opportunities. As Uxbooth’s article points out, total sales in 2009 of in-game advertising came close to $20 billion, compared to $10 billion in revenue from the box office.

Of course, any follower of eye tracking news has heard of Tobii Technology, really one of the leaders in the market at the moment. Tobii’s tech has allowed disabled users to control various devices using only their eyes in addition to helping designers in their decision-making process. Tobii recently introduced the T60 XL Eye Tracker, paving the way for wide screen eye tracking.

Today, eye tracking is pretty ubiquitous in the design world, scientific and medical world, and marketing/advertising world. But dropping prices, cheaper hardware and software, and an eventual decrease in the by-default proprietary nature of eye tracking technology is giving way to ambitious garage tinkerers and industrious thinking fellows, all pushing the field further.

There is, of course, some debate as to whether eye tracking is on the rise or the decline, but, as many of our readers have pointed out, the point is fairly moot. As long as there are advancements in the everyday technology we grow accustomed to, we can see more leaps in conceptual thinking and development when it comes to eye tracking. At Eye Tracking Update we’re made aware of many projects in the works, and as they reach fruition, it will continue to be an exciting time for the further development of our field.

A Brief History of Eye-Tracking

Related articles:

1. Eye Tracking: The First Half
2. Eye Tracking History: An Early Eye Tracking Apparatus
3. Eye Tracking: The Next Stage
4. Eye Tracking in Visual Behavior Research Gives Marketers a Competitive Edge
5. Google Uses Eye Tracking to Test its Revamped Design
6. Tips From Eye Tracking Studies on Website Design
7. Fixations and Saccades in Eye Tracking
8. More Eye Tracking Tips for Web Usability
9. Eye Tracking in New Interfaces
10. Eye Tracking: Avatar Lie Detection … It’s All in the Eyes