Eye-tracking is just one of many techniques, and should never be a replacement for observation and exploration of real users' experiences and motivations. It does require inferring what the user was thinking about as their eye moved, while the eye movement itself could have been caused by any number of things unrelated to the design. Are they tired, did something in the room distract them, did they see a word that had particular meaning to them personally? All these could give you false readings of the effectiveness of the design.
Eye-tracking can be useful if you are trying to make a point with technology management, who often are impressed by what gadgets do and think of usability testing as "soft" science. If you have some findings you are having difficultly communicating, eye-tracking may be a means of "proving" it to skeptical engineers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=44684 ________________________________________________________________ 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
