Mastering Eye Tracking Web Usability Metrics
No doubt that by now you’ve read much of the debate about eye tracking for usability studies, whether it’s effective, whether it’s affordable, whether or not it actually works. Some say that eye fixations don’t necessarily translate to attention or even understanding of a website’s layout. Then of course, there are supporters of eye tracking, some saying it’s entirely useful and others that argue for it’s use as a more supplementary tool, to be used in collaboration with other, more traditional usability studies. Still, others question whether it should be used at all in the first place.
But let’s say you come down on the side that believes eye tracking is effective in determining how a user navigates through a website. If you’ve done eye tracking studies in the past, you’ll certainly know that there’s quite a bit of data to sift through. Tobii’s studio, for example, provides data for first fixation, fixation length, first fixation duration, fixation count, observation length, percentage fixated, percentage clicked, visit count, visit duration, and so on…
It can get overwhelming to say the least.
The website Inspireux recently published an article that might help when it comes to the more complicated eyetracking tasks, and we wanted to pass it along.
First off, how do you know what metrics to use in the first place? The article says that it’s important to know what you’re going to study beforehand, so you can narrow down the results to make things more manageable. For example, they recommend you identify success metrics, meaning you should ask what constitutes success during a specific task as related to your interface. Perhaps it’s time spent on the site, or maybe it’s the amount of clicks to get from one page to another. Maybe the layout of blocks of text and content on the page. Knowing what you want to measure beforehand will help determine which metrics you’ll want to use in the first place.
Another question to ask yourself is which metrics apply for each area of interest. Some metrics are for certain areas of interest, others determine different areas. For example, if you’re defining success as the number of clicks to navigate a particular action, you may want to focus on the number of clicks and the time to click, etc.
It’s important to remember not to try and force insight from every eye tracking metric. Use the ones important to you, and don’t jump to conclusions – if someone looks at an image 5 times, it doesn’t mean you should change it to get them to look 10 times. When you choose metrics to observe, make sure you choose the ones that will lead to real insight, so you don’t waste time making changes for no reason other than arbitrary ones.
Eyetracking Metrics for Usability Studies
Related articles:
- Eye Tracking and Usability: Which Metrics Are Valuable?
- How Do You Know Which Eye Tracking Metrics To Use?
- Which Eye Tracking Metrics Are Best In Usability Testing?
- Framework for Eye Tracking Patterns and Usability Problems: Pt 3
- The Latest in Eye Tracking Web Usability Research pt2
- The Latest in Eye Tracking Web Usability Research pt3
- Framework for Eye Tracking Patterns and Usability Problems: Pt 2
- Eye Tracking Usability and User Experience, but Fun Overall
- Is Eye Tracking for Usability Studies Worth the Trouble?
- Eye Tracking: Facebook and LinkedIn Usability