During my studies I volunteered to take place in demonstrating services offered in the Information Design Transfer Center of the FH Joanneum University, one of them being the usability studies using eye-tracking and gaze-tracking methods.
The infrared camera attached to the base of the screen, when properly calibrated, tracks the movements of the eye, translating them to the pixels on the screen, recording everything that the user is looking at.
The gathered data is later processed, giving the test conductors information where and for how long the user was focusing his/her attention over the course of time. The software then allows the creation of “heatmaps” that can help in analyzing the user’s behavior, in order to optimize the layout or the content of the website.
In addition to the websites, the eye-tracking method can be used to assess advertisements, product design, user interfaces etc.
