Rythm of the eyes: enhancing visual communication through eye-tracking technology

Visual is the main form of communication used by designers to convey unique and creative messages to the viewers. Whether the communication processes took place in basic forms such as in 2D sketches, paintings or through rendered 3D animated models, the ultimatum of using visual communication is to enhance the viewers experience with the tangible creative products and subsequently improve the quality of their decision-making. The platforms for visual communication within the creative environment also include advanced visualization technologies such as virtual reality and augmented reality, which provide real-time and real-world experience to the viewers. Nevertheless questions were raised whether the designers were fully aware of the viewers perception towards the visual information embedded in their creative products. Without these understanding, the products and their valuable information would be less meaningful to the viewers

User-Friendly Website Design: A Combined Eye-Tracking Study

A simple and intuitive operation – the so-called usability analysis of websites – is indispensable in modern times. In particular, drop-out rates can be applied as an indicator of existing usability problems. Eye-tracking is a proven method for the evaluation of the usability of websites. The aim of the study was to improve the usability of the website of an educational institute for trainees in the region as the target group. For this purpose, the use of an eye-tracking technology was combined with a survey of 30 trainees. The eye-tracking study was task-oriented: subjects were asked to inform themselves of particular course offers, and to register for the relevant courses. This procedure and the subsequent survey provided tangible indications of the search and surfing behaviour of the target group as well as their assessment of the usability of the website. This combination of methods allows the development of recommendations for optimizing the website with regard to its orientation, structure and level of comprehensibility. This work is licensed under a&nbsp;Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.</p

Understanding Unauthorized Access using Fine-Grained Human-Computer Interaction Data

Unauthorized Data Access (UDA) by an internal employee is a major threat to an organization. Regardless of whether the individuals engaged in UDA with malicious intent or not, real-time identification of UDA events and anomalous behaviors is extremely difficult. For example, various artificial intelligence methods for detecting insider threat UDA have become readily available; while useful, such methods rely on post hoc analysis of the past (e.g., unsupervised learning algorithms on access logs). This research-in-progress note reports on if the analysis of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) behaviors, which have been empirically validated in various studies to reveal hidden cognitive state, can be utilized as a method to detect UDAs. To examine this, an experimental design was required that would grant the subjects an opportunity to engage in UDA events while tracking the HCI behaviors in an unobtrusive manner. Background, experimental design, study execution, preliminary results, and future research plans are presented

Stars in their eyes: What eye-tracking reveal about multimedia perceptual quality

Perceptual multimedia quality is of paramount importance to the continued take-up and proliferation of multimedia applications: users will not use and pay for applications if they are perceived to be of low quality. Whilst traditionally distributed multimedia quality has been characterised by Quality of Service (QoS) parameters, these neglect the user perspective of the issue of quality. In order to redress this shortcoming, we characterise the user multimedia perspective using the Quality of Perception (QoP) metric, which encompasses not only a user’s satisfaction with the quality of a multimedia presentation, but also his/her ability to analyse, synthesise and assimilate informational content of multimedia. In recognition of the fact that monitoring eye movements offers insights into visual perception, as well as the associated attention mechanisms and cognitive processes, this paper reports on the results of a study investigating the impact of differing multimedia presentation frame rates on user QoP and eye path data. Our results show that provision of higher frame rates, usually assumed to provide better multimedia presentation quality, do not significantly impact upon the median coordinate value of eye path data. Moreover, higher frame rates do not significantly increase level of participant information assimilation, although they do significantly improve overall user enjoyment and quality perception of the multimedia content being shown

Still Searching or Have You Found It Already? – Usability and Web Design of an Educational Website

Background: Apart from a straight-forward and intuitive operability an appealing design determines the success of a website equally well. For this reason, the selection of images and navigation bars plays a determining role. The eye tracking method proved to be appropriate in order to verify the usability of websites. Objectives: The aim of the study was to improve the usability of the website of an educational institute for trainees as target group. Methods/Approach: For this purpose, the use of an eye-tracking technology was combined with a survey. The eye-tracking study was implemented task-oriented. Test persons were asked to search for particular courses within this institute. Results: This approach in combination with a subsequent questionnaire resulted in tangible indications of search patterns of the test group. Furthermore, their perception and their appraisal of the usability as well as the web design was analysed. Even though most tasks were accomplished effectively and efficiently with a positive user feedback, a potential for improvement was detected, in particular with regard to the images and the location of the search field. Conclusions: The selected choice of methods enables researchers and web designers to derive recommendations for the orientation, structure, optimisation and comprehensibility of a website

How google triggers the behavior of its users

With this contribution we would like to explore if Google’s new style guides on their search engine result pages count for a more liberal competition on electronic information markets. To get empirical evidence on this research question a two stage experimental eye tracking study was conducted. On the first stage the attention and selection behavior of 20 participants on ‘universal search’ engine result pages was recorded and published (Möller & Schierl, 2012). On the second stage 35 participants took part in a follow-up study in 2013 and were confronted with different pages of search results taken from Google’s proposal to the European Commission. The results reveal that the implemented visual markers by Google weigh heavily in favour of Google’s own services and considering this will have a negative effect on the liberal competition with other providers of online information

Visual Search in Radial Menus

Abstract. Menu research has focused predominantly on linear menus (e.g., cascading menus). Little is known about user behavior with radial menus, which have been around for some time. The paper investigates the order in which users find items in radial menus. We analyze data collected in a controlled experiment and define serial position for items laid out in a circular fashion. For the first level (ring), the serial positions start at 12 o&apos;clock position and alternate between both sides of the ring. For subsequent levels, the serial positions follow distance from a parent item. The defined search pattern yields strong fit and has substantial effect on search performance. We discuss the results in the context of radial menu design