Eye Tracking. It’s Been Around For Ages.
What do we need, and how do we get it?
Humans are complex. There are many elements that go into decision making and preferences. In research, it’s typically easiest to just ask a respondent’s feelings- via a qualitative interview, quantitative survey, or some form of self-report.
However, sometimes ‘asking’ doesn’t tell the complete story or answer the deeper questions. Emotions, engagement, and attention can all be difficult for respondents to communicate clearly, and sometimes a “best guess” is more of a ‘wild guess.’ Tools that accurately measure behavioral and emotional feedback are becoming increasingly common, and one of the most common is eye tracking.
Despite common assumptions, eye tracking is not a new technology. It has been used in research for more than a century. In the late 1800s, researchers studied eye movements using custom contact lenses fitted with pointers to record gaze patterns. These early methods required direct contact with the eye and a fixed head position, but they established principles and procedures that shaped the field.
Fortunately for today’s researchers, eye tracking technology has advanced significantly. It is now portable, contact-free, and even capable of remote data collection on a global scale. Whatever your research questions, there is an eye tracking solution that can capture the eye gaze data you need.
Having worked with eye tracking solutions for many years, we’ve seen various solutions mature over the years. Moving from tabletop-only monitors with built-in IR cameras to wearable glasses and HD webcam feeds, there have been a lot of changes that have really increased accessibility. Also worth mentioning are the changes on the analysis side. Tasks that used to take days (or weeks) now take hours or minutes, and data that was previously hard to visualize is considered standard output.
From our perspective, one of the most notable recent shifts is how eye tracking devices are used in commercial research. For years, eye tracking was mainly used to produce visual outputs (such as heat maps and gaze replays) to show where respondents looked as indicators of visual attention. That remains a very valuable application, but there is now greater emphasis on eye gaze data that helps explain those visual patterns.
Metrics such as time to first fixation, total fixation duration, and many more are being used in increasingly novel ways to get a deeper understanding of respondent’s experiences. We can ‘reconstruct’ paths and activity to uncover trends and behaviors.
Ultimately, eye tracking provides a way to capture behavioral data that is otherwise difficult to attain. It is not easy for respondents to self-report where they looked, in what order, and for how long. Pairing the eye tracking ‘what’ data with a qualitative discussion to explain the ‘why’ is a modern and effective way to explore how participants act and feel.
