• Eye-tracking In Mobile UX Research
  • Mariana Macedo
  • The Nuggets translation Project

Introduction ↬ Eye tracking is a way of measuring where people are looking and how long they are looking, and the study of user experience is made easier by technology. It allows researchers to look through the user’s eyes and gain insights about visual attention. This article explores the latest trends in the eye tracking market and how to include this approach in the user experience researcher’s toolbox.

Eye tracking is valuable for usability testing because it can record the journey without interfering with the user’s natural behavior. For example, imagine that you test a prototype and discover that users don’t interact with the interface the way they should. You may well think that the button might be too small, or that you need to change the color, font, or location. As a result, you make the buttons more prominent, but the user still doesn’t interact with the interface as expected.

After spending time and resources making improvements, you realize that the problem is not that they can’t see the buttons, but that even if they do, they don’t know what to do with them. However, using eye-tracking devices will help researchers immediately notice the lack of understanding. This is one of the benefits of using eye tracking. Identifying usability problems faster will save customers and developers time and money when researchers can see through the user’s eyes.

Eye tracking provides information about how people navigate a page and how attractive they are to visual elements on the screen, such as this study by The Nielsen Norman Group that shows the patterns people use to scan comparison tables. If you’re designing an application or website, you can test the simplicity and immediacy of completing a specific task, filling out a form, finding specific information, or buying a product.

Evolution of eye tracking

The first studies of eye movement were done in the 1800s by direct observation. Since then, technology has evolved, and what began with naked eye observations has evolved into sophisticated and accurate techniques for measuring eye movements.

[Eye tracking is new, but recent technological developments have made it available to businesses of all sizes.] (twitter.com/share?text= Eye-tracking is nothing but new, but recent developments in technology made the methodology accessible to businesses of all sizes. &url=smashingmagazine.com%2f2021%2f10%2feye-tracking-mobile-ux-research%2f)

In the late 1990s, marketing and advertising agencies saw the potential of eye tracking on the Internet and began using the technology to analyze how people consumed content online. One of the few AD agencies using eye-tracking at the time was EURO RSCG/DSW Partners. They used eye tracking to measure the visual attention of banners, animated graphics and navigation tools in websites. Before these studies, web pages were designed as print media, with columns and chunks of text.

Yahoo! ‘s 1997 home page is an example of a site that was less dynamic and followed the structure of a printed newspaper. (Credit: Mashable.com)

It was the implementation of eye-tracking that provided useful insights that helped shape the work of web designers.

Research conducted by Nielsen in 2006, for example, showed that people read content on the Internet in an F-shaped pattern. Users tend to read from the top/left. Next, they move to the top/right side of the page to view highlighted content such as images and subheadings.

This heat map is a visual representation of the F – shaped pattern. It demonstrates the importance of eye tracking in creating a Web writing guide. (Credit: Nelson Norman Group)

Today, hardware and software are designed for eye-tracking research for marketing, user experience, psychological and medical research, games, and a few other use cases.

In marketing, eye tracking is used to test advertising, product placement, and packaging, such as this use case that shows the visual attention different smoothie brands get from shoppers:

In combination with other methods, eye tracking can show the color, name and design on the package. (Credit: Oculid)

Another area that shows great potential is eye tracking in virtual reality environments. VR headsets use eye tracking to see where the person is actually looking and make the experience more immersive. For PC games, eye tracking allows the player to just look at the object they want to interact with and press a button, rather than using a mouse or controller to direct them to where the player is looking.

The eye tracking market is expected to reach $1.75 billion by 2025 and exists in different market segments and industries.

How eye tracking works

To include eye tracking in your study, it is necessary to understand how this approach works. The researchers used an eye tracker, a device designed to measure eye movement (usually glasses), or software integrated with a smartphone’s webcam or selfie camera.

Smartphones can be used as eye tracking devices. Analysis of selfie camera data can provide information about a user’s gaze. (Credit: Greta Hoffman/Pexels)

Typically, researchers select the stimulus region to be displayed, known as the region of interest (AOI). For example, in terms of usability, it could be filtering in an application or advertising on a website. AOI determines the area in which you will calculate metrics. In addition to AOI, two concepts are widely used in eye tracking:

  1. Fixed when the person’s gaze stops moving and rests on an object.
  2. Saccade The movement of the eyes between fixations.

After the AOI is defined and tests are designed, participants can join the study and interact with your application or web site. The metrics and how they are displayed depend on the eye-tracking tool you choose. It also includes everything from studying individual records to collecting data on specific user behavior ** * to quantitative comparisons of the number of users who view AOI, the time they spend on it, and the speed at which it is first detected.

An eye-tracking heat map is a visual representation of the user’s aggregated eye movements. People spend more time looking at summer sales banners than anywhere else. (Credit: H&M/Oculid)

Using visual video recordings or gaze paths on heat maps, you can see where the person is looking, for how long, and get actionable data. For example, the length of time a user first looks at an AOI (more than 0.15 seconds) may indicate that the AOI should be placed elsewhere. Alternatively, looking at AOI for a long time may indicate that the user does not know what to do with the information, or that AOI is simply enough to hold the user’s attention for a long time. Data needs to be analyzed in context so that it can be interpreted correctly.

That’s why eye tracking can and should be combined with other methods, such as surveys, thinking out loud (using words to express their thoughts when users perform tasks during usability testing), and click-through rates, to provide researchers with valuable insights.

Thinking Aloud allows researchers to hear what users are Thinking, and it’s a great addition to eye-movement tracking. (Source: Oculid) (Large image preview)

Eye tracking for user experience research

While some of the information provided by eye tracking can be obtained by clicking on heat maps (visual representations that use thermal imaging to show where people clicked) or surveys, eye tracking can also capture data that participants don’t remember, don’t describe or interact with for visual use only, without clicking or clicking on it.

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This is a heat map of a website. It shows where people clicked, but doesn’t provide information about where they looked but decided not to click. (Source: www.crazyegg.com)

Eye tracking gives product designers actionable data about how users perceive and interact with the UI on the desktop and mobile devices. Eye tracking, however, used to cost much more than heat maps because measuring a user’s line of sight required special hardware in the lab. Recently, however, it has become relatively cheap to conduct eye-tracking research, with software that can turn any webcam or selfie camera on a smartphone into an eye-tracking device.

Next, we’ll focus on usability in mobile research and present a use case that shows how UX teams can incorporate eye tracking into their research toolbox.

Research on mobile user experience

Until recently, incorporating eye tracking into mobile user experience research was complicated by technical struggles to measure eye movement on smartphones. Until recently, Web designers took a desktop-first approach. Since 2014, however, mobile users have become increasingly important. Mobile design is not only about screen size, but also about user behavior. When using a smartphone, people are often distracted, have short attention spans, or want to perform tasks quickly — such as buying a ticket or looking up an address. For this reason, UX research on mobile devices is essential for many companies today.

Eye tracker devices, the glasses used in most eye-tracking studies, often can’t accurately track the small screen of a smartphone. As a result, it requires careful synchronization of screen content and eye-tracking data, leading to complex study design and analysis. Also, using webcams does not allow users to test applications or websites in a natural environment; After all, users typically interact with mobile applications and websites on their smartphones. However, conducting online experiments is a fairly cheap way to develop better websites, applications, services and strategies and make decisions based on scientific data rather than intuition.

Companies like Amazon, Facebook, Google and Microsoft conduct more than 10,000 controlled online tests each year: they know the investment pays off. Bing has also benefited from testing and revenue-related improvements, increasing revenue per search by 10% to 25% a year.

Fortunately, technology has evolved, from eye trackers and webcams to mobile software, and there is now an opportunity to test eye tracking for mobile user experience studies directly on smartphones — no additional hardware required. Pure software solutions cost 100 times more than eye tracker studies, and allow researchers to test with participants from all over the world and get accurate results immediately, which will help them develop strategies for their digital products.

How to do eye tracking research

Eye-tracking studies always start with a question. For example, suppose you are launching an e-commerce application and want to know if people see a sales banner placed on the home page. Based on this well-thought-out research question, you can formulate a hypothesis that reflects your assumptions about user behavior, such as “Using photos of products sold will drive more conversions.” This will enable you to test the predictions and analyze the results more easily. After defining your assumptions, you select the base metrics to track and measure whether your assumptions really reflect the behavior of your users. Next, you create the task and the visual stimulus with which the participant will interact.

Web and mobile eye tracking studies are very effective for studying different versions of your website, app or AD, as well as competing websites (called A/B testing). By running comparative studies, you will be able to assess which elements are most effective. Once you have designed the tests and implemented the research in the test tool of your choice, it is time to consider who will join your research.

For studies where researchers analyze only heat maps, it is necessary to recruit at least 30 participants. Although heat maps are visually appealing and more popular among researchers, they require many participants to produce more satisfactory results. You can also conduct smaller studies, watch personal video replays, and listen to what they say by thinking out loud. For this type of study, you should have at least six participants.

The study can be conducted in the laboratory or remotely, with or without a moderator. Laboratory studies require more time and resources and are limited to participants who can participate in the study in person. All eye-tracking devices and software must be available in the lab, and studies must be monitored by researchers and facilitators.

Remote research can be conducted with participants from all over the world, which is suitable for companies whose customers are located in different cities or even countries. Remote research can be conducted without restriction with tools that can collect and save data. All researchers need to do is issue invitations and relax, and technology does all the work.

The metrics available in eye tracking vary from tool to tool. Most tools provide qualitative and some quantitative results. What is more relevant to you depends very much on the type of research you undertake. Some of the most commonly used metrics to measure quantitative eye movement are boot time fixation, first gaze time, dwell time, return visit, and many others.

Eye tracking insight

A study conducted by market research firm Eye Square using their real-world testing and Oculid’s smartphone eye-tracking technology shows that remote eye-tracking studies on smartphones can provide insightful data for user experience teams.

The Eye Square and Oculid study is based on tests conducted by 100 respondents in the US to understand how shoppers interact with e-commerce and what factors engage them with products, with samples collected over two days. Each tester was given 3 to 5 minutes to complete each test. This study includes two UX-related scenarios: an online shopping scenario and a scenario where advertising is tested in context.

The eye-tracking study was designed on Oculid’s platform. (Credit: Oculid)

The study’s analysis provides insight into what customers are doing and why, while maintaining their privacy. It is an automated anonymous analysis that is ** fully transparent to testers, ** and complies with the provisions of the General Data Protection Regulation 2016/697 (GDPR), an EU law. Data is recorded only with the explicit consent of the user and deleted in accordance with the GDPR.

Here are the results of the two conditions analyzed in the eye-tracking study:

1. Shop online

When checking out or considering an online purchase, eye tracking shows which elements will catch a consumer’s first glance. Eye Square ran A/B testing, A process that used Oculid’s eye-tracking technology to present two or more versions of variables (page elements, ads, apps) to different groups of users.

The A/B tests are carried out by interacting with two different versions of the site having two groups:

  • A(CONTRAST) : This confirms the hypothesis;
  • B(Challenger) : This is a modification.

The analysis showed that fewer than 10 percent of shoppers scroll down to see products that aren’t visible on the first page.

The lower the level of the product, the less participants pay attention to it. (Credit: Eye Square/Oculid)

A/B testing also showed that consumers would use visual triggers they already knew about, as well as other large, sharp images. However, the decision is not limited to the visual effects of the page, but also influenced by the content. For example, shoppers tend to spend a lot of time reading product details pages, which demonstrates the importance of writing compelling copy on product pages.

The second user experience scenario is advertising in a social media environment.

2. Contextual advertising

In the scenario Eye Square and Oculid studied, where ads were shown in context, participants first viewed an Instagram feed that showed a video advertising a particular pair of headphones. Participants in the study were then asked to buy a pair of headphones online. It doesn’t specify what type of headphones it should be. Participants were directed to Amazon’s web page, where they were shown different products in the category, with different brands on display.

A contextual analysis of eye-tracking data provided by Oculid’s ads showed that the specific headphones shown in the video ads received more visual attention than products from competing brands. The headphones in the AD received 2.4 seconds of visual attention, compared to 2.1 seconds for the nearest competitor, which was previously listed.

This was true even though the product in question was ranked fourth among online shopping platforms, indicating that the AD helped attract customers’ attention. In addition to getting longer viewing times overall, customers studied by Eye Square and Oculid showed 50% more interactions/clicks with AD products than any other competing product. For the UX team, this study shows how measuring visual attention provides information about the patterns people follow when visiting a website or application.

conclusion

Eye tracking used to be an expensive and challenging method, which kept many researchers away from it and made it difficult for user experience researchers to conduct mobile research. Smartphones now boast 50-megapixel selfie cameras that can be used as high-precision eye-tracking devices for mobile user experience research. Eye tracking can easily be incorporated into a researcher’s toolbox thanks to technology and the easy integration of study design and data analysis.

Including eye tracking during usability testing provides a number of benefits to UX teams. On the one hand, it allows you to test prototypes and make changes based not only on what the user says, but also on what they do, almost as if seen over the user’s shoulder, but in their natural environment. In addition, it can save companies time and money by providing insights into user behavior.

The technology can be used by eye tracking experts as well as user experience teams who are only familiar with other methods. A reading of usability testing and some of the main indicators of eye tracking and how to interpret them is enough to get started and try. Having the opportunity to test this approach can complement usability testing and take it to the next level.

To be sure, not every question on mobile UX can be answered with eye tracking alone. As mentioned earlier, it is recommended to combine different approaches to get different perspectives on user behavior. But the technology, combined with online questionnaires, thinking out loud, interviews and more, can provide insights into subconscious processes that influence decision-making that are not available through other methods.

source

  • Mobile User Experience (UX) Design, Interaction Design Foundation
  • “Pioneers Of Eye Movement Research,” Nicholas J Wade
  • “A Brief History Of Eye-tracking,” David Leggett
  • Eye Tracking And Usability: How Does It Work? by Nick Babich
  • Eye Tracking, Usability.de
  • “The Surprising Power Of Online Experiments,” Ron Kohavi & Stefan Thomke