Mobile eye tracking in art museums: From visitor research to museum practice

Studies using mobile eye tracking (MET) in art museums have provided valuable insights into the visitor experience. Findings suggest that this is strongly influenced by artwork features, exhibition design and visitor characteristics. To date, however, these empirical results have rarely been used to inform exhibition design. Here, we summarize recent MET research in art museums and discuss what these studies reveal about factors influencing the visitor experience. We argue that the field is characterized by an evaluation-implementation gap. Thus, the primary challenge is not the generation of new knowledge about visitor behaviour, but the translation of this knowledge into evidence-based interventions and broader institutional learning. We examine the factors contributing to this gap and outline strategies for strengthening collaboration between researchers and museum professionals. We conclude that MET offers considerable potential not only for understanding visitor behaviour, but also for evaluating exhibitions and related information materials under ecologically valid conditions. In the future it will be important to integrate museums' substantial professional expertise in designing exhibitions and visitor experiences, with methodological and data sharing practices more common among academic researchers. On the museum side this will require greater awareness of the applications of MET to visitor research, including empirical evaluation of museums' own initiatives. On the academic side, it requires collaboration with museum professionals at every stage of study design, from the formulation of research questions to the implementation of experiments and evaluation procedures.