Jared said: > "I said that I thought it is a voodoo technique. Deducing information > about a design from eyetracking is equivalent to reading tea leaves > and using a ouija board." >
That's a pretty colorful exaggeration. Eyetracking lets you see where people are looking in real time. Without considering post-test analysis, this has real value in helping the facilitator better understand what is happening without interfering. One analogy I find useful, in terms of understanding what the participant is doing/thinking, is that having eyetracking versus not having eyetracking is like testing in person versus testing remotely. I wonder, given your research background, Jared, if we are talking about different types of eyetracking studies. For academic/generalizable research, I have found eyetracking studies to be pretty meaningless. But for testing real products, and only trying to interpret results for those pages, it can be useful and not all that difficult, depending on the stimulus and tasks of course. I also wonder if some people have been burned by past bad experiences with faulty eyetrackers and bad software. My lab at school had three separate eyetrackers and none of them worked correctly. The Tobii one that I use now is easy to use and the analysis software is very good. Paul On Sat, Apr 19, 2008 at 9:46 PM, Jared M. Spool <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I didn't say that I thought eye tracking was fluff. > > I said that I thought it is a voodoo technique. Deducing information > about a design from eyetracking is equivalent to reading tea leaves > and using a ouija board. > > The latter are cheaper, but just as reliable. > > Every person I know who swears by eyetracking and has stories on how > its helped them can't explain how they would've gotten the same > results if some other professional had looked at the same raw data. > Until we can get to that point, the reader of the data will be more > important than the data itself, thereby making tea leaf reading a > viable alternative. > > Jared > > Jared M. Spool > User Interface Engineering > 510 Turnpike St., Suite 102, North Andover, MA 01845 > e: [EMAIL PROTECTED] p: 1 978 327 5561 > http://uie.com Blog: http://uie.com/brainsparks > > > > . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . > Posted from the new ixda.org > http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=28208 > > > ________________________________________________________________ > 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 > ________________________________________________________________ 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
