Last week we ran the first eyetracking pilots for a new study and collected some sample data. This is part of a HEIF project and our hope is to combine the skills of the psychologists (who really know how to use this equipment), with usability experts and consumer insight people (I’m one of the later I suppose). This first study is pretty basic and our hope is that we can do cleverer stuff later, but I still find the results fascinating (the images are heat maps from 10 participants).
We’ve had some fun trying to interpret them. More on that later
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Posted in: Research
Danielle Locke
October 12, 2010
These are amazing! Really interesting to see, especially the Google ones, says a lot for the paid ads on the right hand side. Would be great to combine these with screen flow and ethnography to get a better idea of whether where people look is where they are clicking. Keep up the good work.
paidia
October 12, 2010
We did collect some qualitative data at the time of the pilot including where a user would click. The full study will have more. The data is very rich and I think it needs careful analysis, including, as you suggest, insight into behaviour to go with gaze
Amber Burton
October 12, 2010
Fascinating stuff. Would like to see how the maps come out when users look at their own profiles (for example a FaceBook or Linked in profile) and/or when looking at their social media news feeds.
paidia
October 12, 2010
That’s a great idea. Obviously it would be interesting to compare how we look at ourselves with how we look at other profiles
Darren Lilleker
October 13, 2010
I do wonder if this gives a hint at a problem with the Google model of paid advertising, simply that we now expect this to be in certain places on the screen and so discount it out of hand. Perhaps the equivalent of checking texts/email/Facebook/putting the kettle on/going to the loo when the TV ad break starts. The problem is that roving ads may catch the eye and be seen but annoy the viewer so much they rebel and ignore in more hostile ways (must think about what savagely ignoring might mean). There are so many applications of this really, both in terms of online consumer insights as well as psychology.
paidia
October 14, 2010
I agree this is a potential issue for Google. Will consumers learn to avoid adword links? But other data (i.e., the log files of campaigns I’ve seen) suggest that some/many people do see and click on these links. The key (and something Goggle try to do) is to ensure that the paid results are good quality. Many may learn to avoid them, and organic search may be better at getting clicks, but paid search does work for some people some of the time and that’s enough to generate a big revenue.
laurabridger
October 18, 2010
I think what is so good about this method of researching is that your participants can’t lie. Although you can’t really tell whether the data is different when a person is being measured to when they not, it would be pretty difficult not to look at something that your eyes were drawn to.
paidia
October 18, 2010
Yes, I think That’s about right. It’s very hard not to look at something. However the data does need some careful interpretation. That’s why I avoided making simple observations here.