The Great Eye Tracking Debate

Do You Absolutely Positively Need Eye Tracking For Web Usability Studies?

In May 2009 Kara Pernice and I debated this question at the UK’s Usability Professionals Association. Kara argued that you do not absolutely positively need eye tracking for web usability studies and I argued that you do.

Truth is, you don’t absolutely positively need eyetracking for web usability studies, but it would not have been much of a debate if we had both taken the middle ground!

I find it frustrating that there is still much misunderstanding about eye tracking in the usability profession. Eyetracking is not a paradigm shift, it does not fundamentally change the way you run a user test. It allows a moderator to move away from relying on the concurrent talk aloud protocol to an informed retrospective protocol. We call this protocol Post Experience Eyetracked Protocol or PEEP and we have developed, refined and tested it internally and with academic partners over many years.

PEEP is an improvement on concurrent talk aloud; it gives the moderator access to real time, subconscious processes that the user is experiencing and without the need for the user to self report. Yes, the equipment is expensive and yes, it takes longer and I’m happy to trade those for better user tests.

Here is an edited version of my talk, the original is 35 minutes long.

Summary of part one:

• The Concurrent Talk Aloud Protocol has flaws
• Post Experience EyeTracked Protocol (PEEP) addresses the flaws in CTA

Summary of part two:

• Eye tracking can help optimise designs, when used with Mass User Testing
• Eye tracking helps non specialist stake holder engage with usability

Here is Kara’s unedited talk.

There is significant similarity between the two talks. The main point of differentiation for me is that at Bunnyfoot and Think EyeTracking we integrated eye tracking in to our standard approach to usability testing many years ago when we realised it’s value as an implicit research tool. As such it’s part of our culture and we no longer remember the difficulties we had when first learning eye tracking. It’s like driving a car with manual gears, at first it’s difficult but becomes second nature and the pain of the learning process is replaced by the joy of being able to go places you could not go before.

Amanda Jahn blogged a summary of the debate.

Thanks for reading: http://twitter.com/modestrobert