Interaction Design Theory: A description of the role of eye movement research

When interacting with domestic internet users, they are often asked, "Tencent has an eye-moving device early on, is it often used?" "and" What's the special effect of eye movement research? "And so on some of the questions. When they ask these questions, they are mostly out of curiosity and interest, and after all, the eye-movement research approach is not as pervasive as usability testing in domestic Internet user research. Today I would like to talk about the role of eye movement research in Tencent's user research work , readers are interested in a lot of discussion and exchange.

With the development of science and technology, many brands of eye movement and the corresponding software configuration system, can accurately track the eye movement of the test data, and then use the gaze time, gaze sequence and the number of times to see eye movement indicators to analyze the problem, Finally, the results can be displayed using intuitive graphics (such as the gaze density map) or video (such as replaying the gaze trajectory). This research method on the dimension of eye movement pattern is being paid more and more attention by researchers. Although it is relatively novel compared with usability testing, quantitative questionnaire research and user research methods such as focus groups, its application field is very extensive, including human-computer interaction research, reading research, advertising psychology and traffic psychology and other fields can see its figure. The following is a discussion of some of its roles in web design user research.

Many large web sites are designed to consider data escalation capabilities, for example, the click event of each link in a certain page has the data report function and so on, analyzes these backstage clicks the quantity data may draw the user in the website page each link's click Distribution and the hot spot result, thus provides the objective reference data for the website content and the design optimization. But sometimes, the website product manager or the designer will want to understand the user in the website page's browsing path, to each area content's attention degree and so on. In order to solve this demand, if only from the background data analysis to do click Statistics and Path analysis, the conclusion is not comprehensive. For example, background data can be difficult to realistically restore the user's historical browsing path, and not to record the user's gaze to the link but not to produce a click.

Thankfully, eye movement research is a good choice to address these needs. Because through eye movement research, not only can restore the subjects ' gaze trajectory in each page completely, but also can divide the interest area analysis to the subjects ' attention in each area. In addition, we can analyze whether the eye movements of all subjects are smooth, the distribution of gaze point is reasonable, and whether there is any obvious interest area or doubt area. In order to solve the above needs more comprehensively.

Here are a few more examples to describe the role of eye movement in a more descriptive way.

1, with the background data analysis, from a comprehensive dimension to mining the user's attention.

For example, through background data analysis found that a region of link clicks than expected value much smaller, the expert assessment that this area should be the user will focus on, so we are very confused. Finally, through the eye movement analysis, it is found that these areas are really very soon to be user attention, gaze time is also longer, finally combined with the interview to understand that the user is interested in the content here, the background of the small number of clicks because the user to see the content of the link title can get enough information, or do not know is the link can be clicked.

2, combined with usability testing, focus on the user's eye movement characteristics when performing usability testing tasks.

For example, in the Download Software test task, observe the user's line of sight, so you can clearly see where the download takes too long the user is where, by which interface information is confused, or intuitively understand the user download guidelines for novice users are helpful, etc.

3, compare the website design before and after the user gaze trajectory, judge the rationality of the revision.

For example, insert a recommendation area in the body of a news page, through the eye movement data analyzes the user in the new and old version page's gaze order to have what difference, observes the user in the new version page's recommendation area to have the dense gaze spot distribution and so on, thus judged the revision (inserts the recommendation area) the rationality.

4. Study the effectiveness and interference of advertising position.

For example, if you plan to place an advertisement next to the key content of the page to attract the attention of the user, you are worried that it will affect the user's normal browsing, or cause the user to ignore the important content. It can be well studied and validated by eye movement research.

　
In addition to some of these practical applications, eye movement research methods have a number of roles. In general, analyzing the problem from the eye-movement model can make up for the deficiency of other users ' research methods. The research method of eye movement, combined with backstage data analysis, usability test and user interview, can also make the conclusion more comprehensive and effective. It is believed that in the field of Internet user research, eye movement research technology will become more and more popular, and there will be a lot of sharing and discussion among our peers.