Eye tracking what is

Future uses may see the application of eye tracking data in providing optimal patient care in healthcare settings. Following gaze patterns while people shop has been a growing topic within neuromarketing for many years now. Being able to see what people attend to or ignore can be crucial for implementing optimal packaging design, store layout, and point-of-sale displays.

Eye tracking data can also deliver valuable insights into the gaze patterns of your website visitors — how long does it take them to find a specific product on your site, which kind of visual information do they ignore but are supposed to respond to? Where do your website visitors look? What do they look at and how much time do they spend looking at it? With the evolution of computer technology, eye tracking has become a non-intrusive, affordable, and easy-to-use tool in human behavior research that allows the measurement of visual attention as it objectively monitors where, when, and what people look at.

Eye tracking makes it possible to quantify visual attention as it objectively monitors where, when, and what people look at. There are a variety of different metrics used in eye tracking research, but some of the more common ones are given an overview below.

Other metrics that can potentially provide further information about the participant include the distance to the screen, ocular vergence, and blinks. Bryn Farnsworth, Ph. D PostDoc. The Definition of Eye Tracking Eye tracking refers to the process of measuring where we look, also known as our point of gaze.

The center of the eye pupil center is tracked in relation to the position of the corneal reflection. The relative distance between the two areas allows the calculation of the direction of the gaze. The relative difference in location of the pupil center and corneal reflection allows for deduction of the gaze direction.

Eye tracking glasses Eye tracking glasses which are also known under the term head-mounted As the name implies, mobile devices are fitted near the eyes usually mounted onto eyeglass frames and allow respondents to move freely.

Which recording device should you go for? Start with the obvious: Will your respondents be seated in front of a computer during the session? Go for a screen-based eye tracker. Do your respondents need to move freely in a natural setting or virtual reality? Choose a head-mounted system that allows for head and body mobility. Before your purchase, think about these key questions that can make or break your research: Key questions to ask for eye tracking research Eye tracking camera Which camera is integrated into the eye tracker?

Avoid eye trackers that integrate ordinary low-resolution webcams and use no infrared light. The calibration is done by following a point or video that moves across the screen. The calibration data is combined with our unique 3D model of an eye to create an accurate eye tracking experience. There are two ways of clicking when using gaze interaction.

The method available depends on the application you use as well as your abilities:. Our eye trackers use a unique and very accurate 3D model of a human eye. This model holds information about the physical shape of an eye and how light is reflected and refracted, among other things. For accurate eye tracking, the eye tracker needs to find your pupils or more precisely, the relationship between the pupils and the glints, or reflections.

This can be done through either bright or dark pupil tracking. Bright pupil tracking works similarly to when you get red eyes when using a camera with a flash. By placing the flash, or in this case the illuminators, farther away from the lens you can avoid this.

This is dark pupil tracking. Some people track better with dark pupil tracking, others with bright pupil tracking. Factors like pupil size, age and environmental lights affect how well you are tracked using either of the two methods.

Tobii Dynavox eye trackers are unique in that they dynamically switch between bright and dark pupil tracking, so you will always have an optimized eye tracking experience. Our eye tracking technology is designed with the following in mind:.

Even though eye tracking may be a simple concept, it's a very complex and research-intense endeavour to make a product that's easy to use. We strive to make our eye tracking technology as simple to use as possible. We have years of experience with eye tracking technology through our parent company Tobii , the world leader in eye tracking innovation for almost 20 years. All Tobii devices use the same core eye tracking technology, but in slightly different ways and for different applications.

Skip to main content. Improving the User Experience. Eye Tracking Eye tracking involves measuring either where the eye is focused or the motion of the eye as an individual views a web page. Purpose of Eye tracking When your site visitors are connected to eye tracking software, you will be able to tell: Where they are looking How long they are looking How their focus moves from item to item on your web page What parts of the interface they miss How they are navigating the length of the page How size and placement of items on your existing site or on proposed designs affects attention How it Works As a participant looks at a webpage, the eye tracking device focuses on the pupil of the participants eye and determines the direction and concentration of their gaze.

The software generates data about these actions in the form of heat maps and saccade pathways: Heat maps Heat maps represent where the visitor concentrated their gaze and how long they gazed at a given point. Capabilities and Limitations of Eye Tracking When deciding whether to undertake eye tracking on your site it is important to consider your goals and resources as well as the capabilities and limitations of the testing method.

When analyzing results, keep in mind the capabilities and limitations of eye tracking: Capabilities Limitations Tell you whether users are reading or scanning content. Determine whether a user is searching for something. Pupil diameter appears to increase when users are not sure what words they are looking for. This can happen when users are on new sites or pages with groups of broad categories. Cannot tell you for certainty that users saw something conscientiously.

Users can aim their eyes at an area for a short period of time without any awareness. Cannot tell you for a certainty that users did not see something, since eye tracking does not capture peripheral vision. Cannot tell you why users are looking at something. Cannot test everybody effectively. Problems have occurred when some users wore eyeglasses or hard contacts, had small pupils, a wandering eye or expressive face. Best Practices The Nielsen Norman Group has outlined considerations when conducting an eye tracking test.