Eye tracking (Gaze Tracking) is the technology that tracks users’ gaze and eye movements. It tracks which product the customer is interested in, from where the customer obtains the information, and what draws the attention of the customer.
The Eye tracking technology is fast and easy to use. It has been developed fully since several decades ago and has been used in various industries including advertisement evaluation, usability evaluation, design evaluation, and visibility evaluation.
Eye tracking requires eye tracker, and there are two kinds of eye trackers—remote eye tracker and goggle eye tracker– depending on the way it is used.
Remote Eye tracking
Remote eye tracking is done in front of the computer monitor without wearing goggles, which lessen the user’s burden.
Remote eye tracking uses fixed screens as stimulus. Analyzing the results is simple and the total time required to do the eye tracking is short because remote eye tracking uses automated gaze coding system
It does not take long to prepare for the experiment since the calibration can be done simply by using just the monitor, and it is also compatible with external programs for cognitive experiments such as E-prime, Psychophysics toolbox, etc. (image source : iMotions Homepage)
Goggle Eye tracking
Goggle eye tracking can be done in various environments, such as in a store, on the streets, or in the car. The subminiature goggle eye tracker minimizes the inconvenience for the users.
To track the customer’s gaze in a store, to understand a person’s gaze while driving, or to evaluate the usability and the design of a real product, goggle eye tracking is necessary. However, analyzing the goggle eye tracker is meticulous and requires professional knowledge and skill. (image source : Tobii homepage)
In-depth eye tracking
Are you doing qualitative research only with eye tracking videos?
Eye tracking is a type of quantitative research based on precise data. It is a vast amount of quantitative research, collecting 30 response data in one second, hence requires appropriate analyzing.
Recording the gaze through eye tracker is just the first step of the research. With visual-spatial quantitative analyzing based on the area coding or AOI (Area of Interest) and visit (visitation of the area), you can digitize diverse information such as visit time of the target’s gaze, the order of the visit, visit duration, re-visit percentage, and characteristics of the gaze and use this information to perform the statistical analyze.
Level 1
Observing Gaze Videos
(Qualitative video analysis)
Perform qualitative analysis by observing the recorded eye tracking videos. This is a good way to get insights when combined with tracking interview, but can’t do quantitative analysis.
Level 2
Quantitative AOI-base analysis
Analyze by partitioning the area with Area of Interest, or AOI, the unit of the product’s area. Using AOI allows quantitative analysis using the gaze share per AOI, duration of the stay, time of the visitation, fixation type and etc.
Level 3
Qualitative visit-base analysis
The visit-base analysis allows us to examine the change by time on top of the AOI analysis since visit-base analysis uses an event as a unit of gazes’ visits. The dynamical analysis is possible such as frequency of the visit, Re-visit percentage, duration per visit, etc.
Level 4
Computational comparing analysis
Sum/Detract and perform other calculations with the gaze data to get specific gaze that qualifies the specific condition. You can also get the common area.
Various application of Eye tracking
The basic eye tracking usually refers to the tracking of monitor/image/video or of the real environment. However, we can also expand our targets like the following.
Eye tracking on
3D-objects
If the real product is not available, 3D rendered objects can be used for eye tracking.
Eye tracking on
Panorama VR
With panorama VR such as street view, we can alter the environment and allow people to feel like they are in the real store or in public, in the lab. It is also possible to put signage, POP, or product shelf as pleased.
Eye tracking on VR
Eye tracking can be done in a virtual environment or a virtual store. Walk around on the big screen like you’re playing a game!
Eye tracking on mirror
When putting on the makeup while looking in the mirror, where do people look at the most? It’s also possible to do the eye tracking with the mirror screen.
