Mobile Eye Tracking in Usability Testing: Designers Analysing the User-Product Interaction

Abstract

Today, mobile eye tracking systems have reached a high level of maturity. They are minimal invasive, allow to record a user-product interaction in its real environment and can reliably detect the user s gaze. Hence their implementation in usability testing of physical products promises great potential. This paper investigates whether the application of mobile eye tracking adds value to usability tests conducted by designers. The research question is approached in two steps. First, a laboratory experiment is conducted comparing designer`s analysis of a user-product interaction through videos recorded either from the mobile eye tracking perspective or out of the third-person perspective. Second, different types of mobile eye tracking analyses are applied to usability tests in three case studies. The results of both studies show that compared to the third-person perspective those designers seeing the eye tracking perspective describe a scene significantly more detailed and isolate significantly more causes of problems. Furthermore the application of object-based, sequence-based and visual pattern-based analysis have the potential to uncover relevant users needs.