Ah yes, eye tracking - it's like the "intelligent design" debate of our field.
A few points to add: -The reaction of "isn't that obvious" to some of the points reminds me of reactions to findings from usability testing years ago. Yes it may be apparently obvious, but that doesn't mean it's not worth validating (see Freakanomics, for example). -Eye tracking can be useful for diagnosing problems, not so much for identifying them. For example, a viewer may miss a critical item on the screen - eye tracking can reveal whether the element was visually detected or overlooked and direct changes accordingly. -There are some specific applications where eye tracking is particularly useful. The radiology example was one. Another is when we used eye tracking to determine whether a novel interface feature (spatially expanding visual cue in the periphery) was affecting visual scanning patterns. Incidentally, in some cases attention precedes eye movements, and vice-versa: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/psocpubs/prp/2004/00000066/00000003/art00004 Happy Thanksgiving. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://gamma.ixda.org/discuss?post=22825 ________________________________________________________________ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
