Eye-tracking will soon be affordable, and 4 more reasons you need to consider using it in user research.
Last week I went to another CPHUX event, this time at Obital, Here are some of my takeaways from the event and workshop.
Obital is a newcomer in the eye-tracking industry. Obital aims to utilise new technology in smartphones and tablets to make the advantages of eye-tracking available for use in all sorts of situations; from helping people with physical disabilities to performing user research.
The presentation left me buzzing with ideas and possibilities from using eye-tracking. User-difficulties that might otherwise be harder to define were evident immediately. So I wanted to share!
ADVANTAGES OF EYE-TRACKING:
- Eye movement is involuntary, so you will see how people truly scan a page and search for information.
- Eye-tracking allows the user to move around without interrupting their thoughts to tell the interviewer what they are doing.
- Eye-tracking makes it possible to quantify user testing results. Something especially useful if you need to persuade managers/clients of a particular solution.
Interpreting results is still an important step, but the data will follow peoples actual behaviour, not what they say they do.
The possibilities are endless!
4 REASONS TO CONSIDER EYE-TRACKING NOW:
- Previously expensive eye-tracking technology will soon be available in mainstream devices: In 2016 alone, Facebook bought The Eye Tribe, Apple bought SensoMotoric Instruments, and Google bought EyeFluence. Already Apple has integrated sensors in their devices.
- Eye-tracking in user research will therefore soon be affordable: I won't mention Obital's estimated price, but let's suffice to say that it was well within what even a small company would be able to afford. Because...
- ... The only hardware you need is a newer smartphone (currently it must be an iPhones), and the rest is the Obital software. Even if Obital for some reason doesn't succeed, I'm sure someone else will.
- Remote eye-tracking is now worth considering as there is a noticeable quality increase of the results from using a new smartphone camera vs a standard webcam (bare in mind, specialised hardware will still be most precise).
Obital's unnamed product will launch in the next few months, and I haven't tested it proper - so I can't exactly recommend it - yet. But the posibility to find affordable eye-tracking solutions soon is worth keeping an eye out for.
International marketing & sales professional and brand hero; from central europe to the world.
4yHey Louise Friis Jensen! We have a very powerful and affordable eye tracking system for you! A glass and handheld computer that allows you to do eye-tracking being fully mobile. Our VPS19 works even in challenging/changing lighting conditions. Check it out on www.viewpointsystem.com or talk to Victoria V. Zykova, MBA at Viewpointsystem GmbH, who is our dedicated Business Development Manager for the research market.
CEO RealEye.io | Online Research Platform, Front-end / Back-end developer
4yAmazing stuff! I'm extremely happy to see the democratizing of Neuromarketing is happening now!
Helping brands build better ads with junbi.ai
4yReally interesting take on the innovation currently taking place in the eyetracking domain. I see others also mentioning the “cheaper” options, like using webcam based platforms. Another highly accurate alternative is using predictive eyetracking, which in our case uses a trained neural net to predict the gaze in the first few seconds when seeing images or video. This makes it ideal during a design or development process as multiple variations can be tested in a matter of minutes. As a research firm we apply and offer both more traditional as well as predictive eyetracking. Each has its own pros and cons and i firmly believe one won’t replace the other, but at the same time affordability will always be a crucial factor in deciding whether or not to apply eyetracking.
UX Researcher | I like to understand why people do what they do.
4yReally nice article. You summed it up really well :)
Online Research Platform with Webcam Eye-Tracking | RealEye.io | Co-founder & CTO
4yVery nice reading. BTW If you work on a design for desktop/laptop you can already use eye-tracking easily and without spending a lot of money - you can do it in a web browser using webcam ;)