Eye Trackers & Types of Measures

Eye-Tracking Measures Part II

 

In Gazepoint’s previous blog post, What To Do With Eye-Tracking Data – Eye-Tracking Measures Part I, we took a more generalized approach to eye-tracking measures to help you understand more about the possibilities, different uses, and approaches of eye-tracking.

 

In today’s blog post, we are going to continue with the topic and dig deeper into the different measures that can be taken, how each one of those measures can help, and give you a better overall understanding of some measures of attraction and performance.

 

Measures of Attraction

 

When using eye trackers to perform research or studies, there’s data that can be interpreted differently depending on how the study is conducted. When looking for attraction, it means generally looking for places and visual points that generate more interest to the user or subject who’s going through the study.

The measures of attraction break up into three categories or groups, and each one of these groups perceives the information differently. Here are the three main categories for measures of attraction:

 

Area Noticeability

 

When performing eye-tracking studies, area noticeability measures can be extremely helpful to inform how visible or noticeable a certain item is. The data can show you how many participants were able to find the area of interest (AOI) that you wanted them to see and how long everyone took to get there. Testing noticeability can be an invaluable piece of information when you are looking to expose or draw the attention of your audience towards an item or a link that people need to go to. 

 

The use of contrasting shapes and colors can prove to be a powerful tool to draw your audience’s attention. Perhaps you are trying to get your customers to hit that “Buy Now!” button, or you want to have them contact you so you can offer your product or services — whatever the case may be, when you test noticeability, you can receive the necessary information to make changes accordingly, making something more impactful or attractive.

 

Area Interest

 

Once you are able to make the user/customer notice your product, item, or point of interest, the next step is to make sure that they maintain their attention on it.

 

An area interest eye-tracking measure can help you define if your product is interesting enough for the users/customers to come back to it. When looking at the data received from the eye-tracking test, you might be able to see where your subject’s gaze was focused, how many steps it took them to get there, and how many times they revisited the same AOI.

 

Knowing this is particularly important for companies or businesses that are looking to expose a product and have the customer take enough interest in it to go for it. There’s no value in having an AOI that gets noticed first if it’s only looked at once for a second.

 

Emotional Arousal

 

This type of attraction measure through eye-tracking studies will show when the subject’s pupils dilate or contract depending on their engagement.

 

There are many reasons why our pupil’s diameter changes; here are some of them:

 

• Light Intensity — Your pupils will contract when there’s too much light to regulate brightness so you are not momentarily blinded. Also, they will dilate when there’s not enough light to help you see clearer in low-light conditions.
• Attraction — When you meet someone you are attracted to your pupils tend to dilate.
• Emotional Sway — When you are impacted emotionally your pupils react to it. For example: when you are happy your pupils dilate due to the oxytocin and dopamine release.

 

Emotional arousal is not necessarily an AOI measure, but it can provide information on stimulus, which ultimately transforms into attraction.

 

Measures of Performance

 

While measures of attraction provide you with the necessary information about the user’s desire, interest, awareness, and more, measures of performance help you determine how efficient a design can be when helping your user reach a goal.

 

With these metrics, you can evaluate the design’s usefulness and how your subjects react and go about certain actions in your user experience study.

 

These measures of performance break into four different groups.

 

Mental Workload

 

Like with emotional arousal, mental workload is reflected in your subject’s pupils. This measure can reflect how much cognitive strain you are exerting on your users and how they react to a different stimulus. 

 

These measures can be used to test and predict “real-world” performance. 

 

Cognitive Processing

 

One of the most interesting things about eye trackers is that they can show where a user has spent more time and for how long. When someone fixates on an AOI, it can mean that the user is using more cognitive processing to either understand what they are seeing or to go through the entire piece of information.

 

When using these measures and receiving the information through an eye tracker, one can see that the subject takes longer reading or deciphering pieces of information that are harder to interpret or if they are looking for something in particular.

 

Target Findability

 

When testing for findability with eye-tracking devices, the user usually must go through two steps. First, the user must find the target by focusing on it. Once they have focused on the target, they have to realize that what they are looking at is the actual target by comparing it to the goal that they have been given.

 

This measure can help by showing how long the user took to find the target, what kept them from moving faster towards the target, and the number of people that actually found the target.

 

Target Recognizability

 

Target recognizability is the ultimate acknowledgement for your user before they take the action that’s related to their goal. These eye-tracking tests can be done to learn if your users are understanding and approaching the target and ultimately engaging the way they are supposed to according to the guidelines of the study.

 

For example, you can ask a user to find a certain button to click it and go to the goal location. If the button is hard to recognize or there’s too much visual information competing with this button, your user might take longer to make the decision to reach the goal.

 

Use Eye-Tracking Information to Enhance Your UX and be Ahead of the Game!

 

There are hundreds of ways to measure information in a way to provide the right data you need. The information provided by eye trackers has helped many different industries to improve products, services, experiences, and developments to provide more attractive products. However, this data has also helped improve the quality of life of individuals with conditions by providing a more in-depth understanding of their problems.

 

Gazepoint is proud to offer high-quality eye trackers at affordable prices. Our goal is to provide hardware and software to businesses, researchers, and individuals out there who are looking to make a difference. Purchase one of Gazepoint’s eye trackers here today!