Definition:
Eyetracking, or eye tracking, is an advanced technology used in the field of neuromarketing that analyzes people’s eye movements to extract valuable information about their visual behavior. This technique focuses on analyzing the eye movement patterns of consumers in front of a screen, with the purpose of recording and understanding user interaction behaviors with various visual stimuli on digital platforms.
The process is carried out using devices known as eye trackers. These devices use infrared beams to monitor the user’s visual behavior, including aspects such as gaze direction, eye movement, blink rate and pupil dilation. In essence, they provide a detailed map of where and how the user focuses their attention.
What is eyetracking used for?
Eyetracking allows recording various aspects of visual behavior, such as:
- Visual focus: Identifies which elements capture the user’s attention in a digital environment.
- Visual path: Maps the visual path that the user follows from one point to another.
- Duration of attention: Measures how much time the user spends observing each element.
- Stimulus effectiveness: Evaluates the effectiveness of specific visual stimuli.
- Ignored elements: Detects which visual components go unnoticed.
- Visual confusion: Identifies elements that generate confusion.
- Intentionality and emotional state: Provides clues about the user’s intentions and mood.
Once this data has been collected, it is essential to process it to obtain useful information. This analysis is crucial to optimize applications, websites, e-commerce platforms and social networks. Through this process, the following objectives can be achieved:
- Content optimization: Determine the ideal location for relevant content within a platform.
- Usability evaluation: Measuring the ease of navigation of a website, ensuring that users find information and buttons with ease.
- Improve user experience: Refine user interaction with the digital environment, improving usability, guiding the user to relevant content and increasing conversion rates.
Eyetracking application examples
Eyetracking is applied in various fields to improve user interaction and experience. Some examples include:
- Web and interface design: Helps identify which elements of a web page attract the most attention and which are ignored, allowing adjustments to improve navigation and usability.
- Advertising and marketing: Evaluates the effectiveness of visual ads and determines which parts of an ad capture the most attention, thus optimizing the design to maximize impact.
- Academic research: Used to study visual behavior in learning or reading environments, providing data on how people process information visually.
- Retail and store design: In physical environments, eyetracking helps to understand how customers interact with products in a store, informing product layout and space design.
Eyetracking tools
There are several eyetracking tools and devices that facilitate the collection and analysis of visual data. Some of the most widely used are:
- Tobii Pro: One of the leading brands in eyetracking technology, offering devices and software for research in various industries.
- EyeLink: Provides eyetracking solutions for scientific research, especially in psychology and neuroscience.
- GazePoint: Offers affordable eyetracking systems for academic and commercial research.
- SensoMotoric Instruments (SMI): Although now part of Apple, SMI was known for its advanced eyetracking technology used in research and commercial applications.