Does an Eye Tracker Tell the Truth about Visualizations?: Findings while Investigating Visualizations for Decision...

Area of Science:

• Information Visualization
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Cognitive Science

Background:

• Eye tracking is a valuable tool for understanding cognitive processes in information visualization research.
• Tabular visualizations are common, but their effectiveness can be enhanced with novel designs.
• Understanding user interaction with data is crucial for designing effective visualization tools.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the cognitive processes underlying the superior performance of SimulSort compared to traditional tabular visualizations.
• To identify the reasons for unexpected eye-tracking patterns observed with SimulSort.
• To highlight potential limitations of eye-tracking methodology in visualization studies.

Main Methods:

• Utilized eye tracking to monitor participants interacting with SimulSort and conventional tables.
• Conducted a crowdsourcing-based experiment (Experiment 2) to explore unexpected eye-tracking findings.
• Employed a testing stimulus (influential column) to verify limitations of eye-tracking data.

Main Results:

• SimulSort facilitated decision-making by promoting efficient browsing and compensatory strategies.
• Unexpected eye-tracking patterns emerged with SimulSort, indicating a potential methodological issue.
• Experiment 2 confirmed that eye tracking cannot capture peripheral vision, explaining the observed anomalies.

Conclusions:

• SimulSort improves decision-making in tabular data exploration.
• The inability of eye tracking to capture peripheral vision is a significant limitation for visualization researchers.
• The proposed method using a testing stimulus can help identify eye-tracking limitations in future studies.