Eye tracking in web search tasks

Abstract

An eye tracking study was conducted to evaluate specific design features for a prototype web portal application. This software serves independent web content through separate, rectangular, user-modifiable portlets on a web page.Each of seven participants navigated across multiple web pages while conducting six specific tasks, such as removing a link from a portlet. Specific experimental questions included (1) whether eye tracking-derived parameters were related to page sequence or user actions preceding page visits, (2) whether users were biased to traveling vertically or horizontally while viewing a web page, and (3) whether specific sub-features of portlets were visited in any particular order_ Participants required 2-15 screens, and from 7-360+ seconds to complete each task. Based on analysis of screen sequences, there was little evidence that search became more directed as screen sequence increased.Navigation among portlets, when at least two columns exist, was biased towards horizontal search (across columns) as opposed to vertical search (within column). Within a portlet, the header bar was not reliably visited prior to the portlet's body, evidence that header bars are not reliably used for navigation cues.Initial design recommendations emphasized the need to place critical portlets on the left and top of the web portal area, and that related portlets do not need to appear in the same column. Further experimental replications are recommended to geueralize these results to other applications.

Could I have the Menu Please? An Eye Tracking Study of Design Conventions

“…They also found evidence that strong information scent heading labels were largely ignored in the search process. The Goldberg et al [2002] result illustrates that information scent based on label identity is not actually a driver for eye behaviour.…”

“…Their results show that the 'book-like' layout led to faster and more efficient processing of information on the page although it was liked the least by users. Goldberg et al [2002] used eye tracking to examine a Web search conducted across several screens of Web portal application. They found little evidence of a change in strategy across different screens and a bias towards horizontal search of screens (across columns) rather than vertical search (within a column).…”

Exploitation of Gaze Data for Photo Region Labeling in an Immersive Environment

“…Besides entering the gamer's nickname, the game is solely controlled by eye movements. Gaze-based interactions are triggered after a dwell time of 450 m. The ocular dwell time of fixations lies between 200 and 400 ms [2]. Hence, the selection dwell time lies above this value to avoid random selections.…”

CHITAS - a mouse tracking system in a web environment

“…One of most common uses of the information gathered using eye tracking is in the optimisation of the user interface [1] [2].…”