Utilization of Eye-Tracking Metrics to Evaluate User Experiences-Technology Description and Preliminary Study

Area of Science:

• Human-Computer Interaction
• Web Design & Usability
• Cognitive Psychology

Background:

• Assessing user experience (UX) in web design is crucial for effective interfaces.
• Traditional UX evaluation methods can be time-consuming and subjective.
• Eye tracking offers a potential objective measure of user interaction and cognitive load.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the feasibility of eye tracking for rigorous UX assessment in web design.
• To quantify the impact of specific design guideline violations on user performance.
• To validate a combined framework for UX evaluation using objective, subjective, and expert data.

Main Methods:

• A controlled experiment with 102 participants evaluating 11 websites in A/B conditions.
• Systematic degradation of websites based on Material Design 2 principles (contrast, link clarity, iconography).
• Analysis of eye-tracking metrics (time to first fixation, fixation duration, fixation count, time to first click) alongside subjective and expert ratings using mixed-effects models.

Main Results:

• Reduced contrast and unclear links significantly impaired user performance and increased search effort.
• Iconography's impact on user performance was found to be context-dependent.
• Eye-tracking metrics correlated with subjective and expert assessments, validating the triangulated framework.

Conclusions:

• Eye tracking is a feasible and rigorous method for UX assessment in web design.
• Deviations from design guidelines, particularly in contrast and link clarity, incur significant usability costs.
• The findings support integrating eye tracking into A/B testing and guideline validation for data-driven UI improvements.