Eye-Tracking software is a tool used in website optimisation. It involves asking test subjects to interact with a website whilst you track their eye movements. A clear picture is built of exactly which elements of a page are seen by visitors.
As an experienced website optimisation specialist, I want to highlight what I feel are the advantages and disadvantages of such software:
Advantages
- This technology is unrivalled in terms of providing data of attractive elements of a website. It can be ascertained exactly which areas of your website are being seen and which areas are not. This data then allows you, with changes to the website, to ensure visitors are seeing the products/messages you wish them to see.
- You can run more effective website optimisation tests by concentrating your efforts in the areas which are seen more often by visitors.
- Taking note of areas which are rarely noticed, you can remove or change the content in these areas to improve the overall effectiveness of your website.
Disadvantages
- This technology is very expensive. Now, to achieve reliable results, you would need to run in the region of 20 tests. Typically this would cost in the region of £8k – £10k. Running fewer tests than this would only highlight the most obvious of patterns, which could easily be obtained with cheaper, less sophisticated technology.
- Each test case is clearly aware that they are being tracked. Under test conditions it is well known that a user will behave differently than they would in their own privacy. This makes the data less reliable than other software such as click tracking, which is recorded without the user’s knowledge.
- The data only tells you where the user looked – it does not tell you why. Often, when setting up website optimisation tests, it is more important to understand why visitors behave the way they do.
Conclusion
In Summary, I believe that with unlimited resource, Eye-Tracking is an excellent tool in the arsenal of a website optimisation specialist. However, looking at the current costs, compared with how much improvement can be made to a website as a result of this technology – I would suggest it is not worth using. There are many other, very effective tools that are much cheaper and would provide data of almost as much value.
For further reading I recommend http://websitetips.com/articles/usability/eyetracking/