On Aug 15, 2009, at 9:28 PM, Jared Spool wrote:
When a consultant looks at eye tracking results and says, "The user
clearly sees X but they don't see Y", they are making shit up.
What eye tracking doesn't tell you is why they were focusing on "X."
Okay, so, yeah, their eyes were gazing at this object in the center
left of the page of .08 microns of a second more than the object 40
pixels to the right of it. Uh, huh... and so what?
This is the Web. It's about moving, interacting, finding, exploring.
Fixation doesn't really measure anything other than how long they
looked at what. As a designer, I don't care about fixation, I care
about discovery, interaction, transactions. Fixation doesn't tell me
that, it doesn't show me that. Watching someone use a system and
watching what they interact with does.
Inferring anything from fixation is sketchy at best.
FYI, I've used eye-tracking systems in the past and even the people
who are ET advocates will tell you that by itself, it's pretty much
just a good marketing tool. Personally, any study that only uses ET, I
wouldn't put an ounce of faith in. Just give me a person I can watch
and talk to.
Cheers!
Todd Zaki Warfel
Principal Design Researcher
Messagefirst | Designing Information. Beautifully.
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Voice: (215) 825-7423
Email: t...@messagefirst.com
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In theory, theory and practice are the same.
In practice, they are not.
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