Have you ever wondered what the world looks like through the eyes of a child? For most of us, that time was too long ago to remember. An eye tracking article appeared in the New York Times about a group of scientists who are using eye tracking to learn how children look at and interact with the world as they move around. Children five months old and older were tested as they crawled around a room, walking up and down over an obstacle course through adjustable wooden slopes and paths. In an effort … [Read more...]
Biometric Devices: First Eye Control and Now Sniff Control
It seems that there are many new approaches to wheelchair control popping up, using just about any bodily function imaginable. Finally, action is being taken to meet the needs of large portion of paralyzed individuals that don’t have the ability to use traditional, hand-controlled wheelchairs. We’ve heard of wheelchairs controlled with eye tracking, movement of the tongue, or by sipping or puffing on a straw, and adding to the list is a new method of sniff tracking.That’s right. Researchers … [Read more...]
Cheaper Eye Tracking Increases Relative Value of Heatmaps
There are many who swear by eye tracking heatmaps, saying the visuals are effective and can help us to understand where a viewer is looking as they peruse a website. And of course there are many that say that while a heatmap may show us exactly where someone looks, it doesn’t show us what they are thinking while they do it. Fast Company has written an article that lands on the heatmaps-are-effective end of the spectrum, discussing how inexpensive software applications can be found with a little … [Read more...]
How does Head Stability Improve Eye Tracking Accuracy?
When conducting research, the accuracy of the data is critical to the validity of the results. In the field of eye tracking research, we are always searching for ways to improve our techniques and make the data we collect as legitimate as possible. A German blogger, Markus Weber, discussed data accuracy of eye tracking in a post on the blog site, Another Useful Blog.Weber writes that one essential part of the eye tracking setup is the camera that captures light reflected by the eye. From there, … [Read more...]
How Do You Know Which Eye Tracking Metrics To Use?
As we’ve mentioned before, eye tracking comes at a price – often a high price. Cost prohibitive eye tracking solutions for usability have made for a lot of legitimate questions asking if eye tracking is truly worth it. But let’s assume you’ve bought into the idea that eye tracking is useful, and by some means, be it private or public funding, equipment donation, or cheaper alternatives like DIY eye tracking, you have an eye tracker to work with.A recent post touches on the immense amount … [Read more...]
Eye Tracking and Usability: Which Metrics Are Valuable?
A few articles we’ve recently done at Eye Tracking Update have focused on the cost and effectiveness of eye tracking for usability studies. There’s a lot of debate on the subject of course, but assuming you’ve decided that eye tracking works for you, you may be somewhere along the lines of choosing which metrics to use. Or maybe you’re not choosing, but thinking you need to see all of them in order to gain insight into how a user uses a website.Well, as we’ve written in some of our … [Read more...]
What Eye Tracking Could Do For You
In a recent article we discussed further what eye tracking is good for. With a lot of naysayers still voicing legitimate concerns, it’s important to note eye tracking’s value, even if it comes at a high price. There are a number of companies working on more affordable (dare we say – cheap) products, but unless you’re looking to do it yourself, chances are you’re paying a pretty penny for an eye tracker or to a consulting firm with expert knowledge.It’s important to note that, while … [Read more...]
Text 2.0 Uses Eye Tracking to Customize Reader Experience
Spreading like wildfire, eReading devices are changing the way we consume written materials, creating a competitive market as they become more advanced. And while many are predicting the end of the printed word as we know it, tools such as Text 2.0, a reading technology that personalizes a reader’s experience by tracking eye movements, are changing the game for the meantime.A team of researchers at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence have created the new tool with the help … [Read more...]
Framework for Eye Tracking Patterns and Usability Problems: Pt 4
This week at Eye Tracking Update we’ve been discussing the lack of a concrete, rigorous framework by which eye tracking usability metrics can be interpreted. Typically, interpretations are done by usability experts or in some of the more D.I.Y studies, whomever is doing the testing. We’ve centered much of our discussion around an academic paper published by two researchers, Ehmke and Wilson, from City University, London. In it, they suggest that there needs to be a more standardized model … [Read more...]