Advantages of Eye Tracking and Usability

There are many types of advantages of using eye tracking.

Eye Tracking adds detailed, quantitative data to the usability testing process. We are no longer limited to just general measures (e.g. success rate, errors) or subjective feedback (e.g. comments and ratings). Rather, we can pair traditional usability findings with Eye Tracking data to gain a fuller understanding of the effectiveness of an interface's design and content. (Source: http://www.electronicink.com/think)

This type of technology will have a big impact in computing. The research above will allow users to effectively research on what areas people focus. This can help when developing websites or displaying information.

Eye tracking is a valuable yet cost-effective addition to any usability testing and compliments task-based observation methods well. (Source: http://www.simpleusability.com/services/usability/eye-tracking)

Advantages:

1. Eye movement is faster than other current input media
2. No training or particular coordination is required of normal users
3. Can determine where the user’s interest is focused automatically
4. Helpful for usability studies to understand users interact with their environments
   

Potential Applications

1. Eye gaze correction for videoconferencing
2. Maximizing controllers’ efficiency, minimizing dangers in air traffic displays
3. Developing video games and graphics
4. Marketing research and E-commerce website development
5. Potentially could provide new and more effective methods of computer-human interaction.

Eye Tracking can tell whether users are looking at the screen, reading information or scanning information. It can also show the intensity of the user’s attention and can determine whether a user is searching for specific information.

if we intend to tell more about advantages we can add:

Easy

• Very quick set up. No complicated hardware to configure, simply install the PCI card in your computer and load the software
• Intuitive user interface
• Real-time feedback of eye movement data
• The Auto-threshold feature quickly provides luminance threshold values for discriminating both the pupil and glint automatically
• No calibration is required for many applications
• Easy Slip Correction feature and re-presentation of stray calibration points
• Automatic blink detection and suppression
• The powerful SDK makes it very easy to interface eye tracking with your other applications
• SlideShow -- super-easy stimulus presentation for experiments
• Intuitive graphical analysis of data with fixation-time representation

Flexible

• Select between 30 Hz and 60 Hz operation modes
• Robust against different lighting conditions
• Pupil-only tracking, Glint-only tracking, or choose Pupil-Glint Vector tracking that provides tolerance to head movements
• Choose between Dark Pupil or Bright Pupil tracking
• Run ViewPoint on the same computer as your stimulus presentation or on a remote computer
• Real-time interface between the computer running ViewPoint and other computers (PC or Mac) provides maximum flexibility
• Software Developers Kit provides complete external control of ViewPoint
• Visual Range +/- 44° of visual arc horizontal and +/- 20° vertical