Eye-tracking

Hey, this post is vintage content. It dates back more than 20 years ago: it may contain outdated and inaccurate information.

The first time I heard of eye-tracking was at the Webbit 2003. Literally eye-tracking, it is a technique that allows the movement of the eyes to be recorded using cameras and appropriate software.

The possibilities offered by this technique are many and range over different fields: from advertising to the study of interfaces, to computer control through gaze.

One of its most interesting applications from the point of view of web design concerns the analysis of the usability of web pages. You take a user and make him navigate a site. Cameras record the movement of his eyes. The software superimposes the user's visual path on the pages, providing a very precise map of how they moved through the information.

Watch one of demo movies of SR Labs and you will get a clearer picture.

Today, via newsletter, I find out that Luisa Carrada has summarised in her short article a dossier produced by the Poynter Institute, which I have been wanting to talk about for a while. And he did it with his usual conciseness and simplicity.

Not to be missed.