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Eye Tracking Usability Studies and Self-Reported Measures

Eye Tracking Usability Studies and Self Reported Measures When it comes to usability studies, a standardized procedure is verbal communication between the study participant and the researcher. Typically, the participant puts into words what they think, what they are doing as they navigate through a website or page, describing how it makes them feel, why they are clicking on certain buttons, and what may or may not grab their attention. Ease of use is often self-reported by a study participant, yet subjective measures don’t always accurately reflect performance measures like time and success, and self-reported responses have shown to be a reliable measure of attitudes more than anything else.

Participants are often asked whether or not they notice certain elements, what they notice, etc. But just how reliable are these self-reported measures? Researchers at Bentley University in Massachusetts set out in collaboration with a usability specialist to figure it out. The study discusses the idea of “awareness,” one of these self-reported measures that tend to be more controversial regarding reported accuracy.

Often a moderator asks the participant whether or not they had seen a particular element. A moderator commonly asks an awareness question when the participant didn’t comment on or mention a particular element being evaluated and the moderator wants to understand why. For example, if a participant works past a new promotional area in the center of the homepage, a usability test may be centered around whether the participant clicks there and why. But silent observation or what is called clickstream data only does half of the job, revealing whether the button was pushed or not, but no necessarily why it was or wasn’t pushed. Did a participant not click on the new center button because they didn’t want to or because they didn’t see it?

When a moderator then asks an awareness question such as “did you see the area at the center of the screen or not?” and the user replies, researchers are placing trust in what the participant says. But often, a participant wants to be helpful, or chooses their response based on what they think the moderator wants to hear. With self-reported awareness, a moderator can only really go by the word of the participant.

The publication discusses the use of eye tracking as a reliable solution to this problem, but regards eye tracking as a technology that is still improving and more often than not, cost prohibitive. Therefore, researchers are still stuck having to ask awareness questions and take a participants word for it. Their study used eye tracking to judge whether these self-reported measures were reliable. Have a look…

Reliability of Self-Reported Awareness Measures Based on Eye Tracking

Eye Tracking Usability Studies and Self-Reported Measures

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