Question 1

How is eye tracking used in market research?

Accepted Answer

Eye tracking is used in diverse areas from patient treatment to pilot and driver training, but it is also used in market research for purposes such as improving advertising effectiveness, designing compelling customer and user experiences, optimizing planograms and shelf position, understanding shopper behavior, and creating attention-getting packaging. It can be used to understand how a shopper, user, or viewer will respond to a two-dimensional image, such as a web page or a magazine ad, and it can also be used to understand three-dimensional experiences, such as in-store shopping behavior or how a traveler uses outdoor signage. It can be applied to virtually any situation in which a marketer would benefit from knowing how a visual experience affects attention and viewer responses, whether physiological, emotional, or behavioral. Currently, there are two kinds of eye tracking methodologies, remote and mobile. Remote methods are screen-based and can be used to test two-dimension images, such as web pages, advertisements, mock shelf layouts, panels of a package, and so on. In past times, these have been conducted in a lab setting where technicians and special equipment are available, but now they can be conducted in-home using equipment that can be delivered or the viewer’s own web cam, if conditions of the test allow for it. Mobile eye tracking equipment can be embedded in eyeglasses or integrated into a headset or helmet and allows for study of three-dimensional space as the viewer moves through it. It can track not only eye movement, but head movement and movement of the person viewing the stimuli. It can be used to analyze viewer behavior in an aisle, throughout a store, or anywhere else where the analyst can synchronize the stimuli and the movements. While the eye tracking system records important information about what grabs the eye’s attention, other measurements can be recorded and synchronized with the motions and the stimuli. Biometric data, such as heart rate or neurological activity, can be collected in order to understand how deeply the stimuli affect the viewer. Facial coding and analysis can give insight into the emotions correspond to eye tracking events. These events can also be connected to purchase behavior. For example, an in-store test can also record purchase information which can then be used to analyze the impact of what the shopper saw and on what they paid attention to. At least one company is able to serve test ads into a shopper’s natural online experience, then conclude the experiment with a visit to Amazon to record what was ultimately purchased. Suppliers of eye tracking equipment, software, and services can help you extract the maximum value from your eye tracking efforts.

Question 2

How common is eye tracking in market research?

Accepted Answer

Since 2016, twice as many buyers of insights services are using or trying out eye tracking, according to a recent GRIT report. This percentage has grown from 20% to 40%, with more than one-third of buyers using eye tracking at least occasionally. Although just under 10% of buyers use it regularly, it is unclear how frequently buyers have projects on which they can make good use of it; they may only have such projects “occasionally.” As eye tracking evolves and grows, however, researchers may find opportunities to leverage it that they had not thought of before. When eye tracking was less common, it was also more difficult, more costly, and less familiar. When imagining eye tracking research, most prospective users would imagine recruiting respondents to a central location to test a 2D image, renting special equipment, and hiring a technician to make sure the tests were set up and executed correctly. Today, those logistical, resource, and technical barriers have been dramatically reduced. Research is no longer confined to central locations due to innovations in cloud-based software and the accessibility of equipment. For some tests, respondents can use their own webcams, and equipment has become compact enough for some suppliers to send it directly to a respondent’s home. The introduction of mobile eye tracking equipment in the form of wearables and the software to manage the tests means that eye tracking research is no longer chained to a desk, just as it is no longer tethered to a central location facility. Also, as the technology advanced, the need to have a special technician available to control the conditions has been reduced or, in many cases, eliminated. Suppliers of insights services and platforms have played a role in the growth of eye tracking research. According to a recent GRIT report, more than 50% of full service research suppliers are using it or trying it out, a trend that makes eye tracking more accessible to buyers of insights services because a trusted partner has already vetted the method for them. Eye tracking is becoming a more well-established market research tool as the technology has become less expensive and more versatile, more applications are enabled, and more suppliers are bringing it to their clients.

Question 3

What are the requirements for eye tracking?

Accepted Answer

To conduct eye tracking research, you need a device to capture data, software to collect and store data, software to analyze data and display results, and, of course, your visual stimuli. If the research is to be conducted without the help of an expert, you will also need some instruction regarding potential steps such as set up and calibration. If you are testing an image or video on a screen, you will need a remote capture device. This may be a basic webcam for simple stimuli, or perhaps a higher resolution camera for more complex visuals. If special equipment is needed, there are suppliers who can send it directly to a respondent or to some other party you specify. If you are conducting a test in which the respondent must be able move either their head or whole body, you will need a mobile device to capture the eye movements. These may be eyeglasses, headsets, or helmets. If the research immerses a respondent in a virtual reality or environment, a VR headset with eye tracking capabilities would be used. Software might differ by manufacturer or by the type of device as well as by capabilities, such as the ability to handle video or dynamic images versus static ones. The eye tracking system must be able to record each of the metrics that are relevant to your analysis and reliably associate them with the concurrent stimuli. There will also be some process to calibrate the device to align the pupil and gaze.

Question 4

What are the key metrics of eye tracking?

Accepted Answer

Although many different metrics can be measured and derived via eye tracking, the basic types are fixations, saccades, and, for dynamic visuals, smooth pursuits. Fixations refer to events in which the eye pauses to collect visual data, and saccades can be thought of as the movements between fixations during which visual data is not collected. Smooth pursuits occur when the eye follows a moving object; visual information can be collected but perhaps not as richly as during a fixation. When you create your test, you will design specific stimuli into it that you wish to measure, or areas of interest (AOI), and you will be particularly concerned with the metrics associated with them. Fixations are key because they tell you to which stimuli the viewer is paying the most attention, and several metrics are related to them. For each AOI, the time to first fixation (TTFF) and its duration can be recorded, and this tells you how long it took for the viewer to notice the particular stimulus and how engaging it was. The system will also count the number of times each AOI received a fixation and the average duration of those fixations, and this tells you how compelling each AOI was for a given individual. When multiple individuals are tested, their data are aggregated around AOIs and reported as the number or percentage of individuals who fixated upon it, the duration of these fixations (dwell time), and the number of times an AOI was fixated upon (observation count). One typical way to represent these data is via a heat map on which the most intense areas are represented by a certain color, often red, and the least intense areas are represented by another color, such as blue. With red representing “hottest” and blue representing “coldest,” a color scale is used to represent the relative intensities of all your other AOIs. The heat map is a simple but powerful visualization of how the elements of your visual vary with respect to the attention they command across a population. These metrics help you to understand which elements command attention, but they don’t tell you which elements promote affinity or other reactions. For example, maybe most viewers ignored the nutritional panel because they couldn’t take their eyes off the train wreck in the upper left corner! To be sure about what you gained via this attention, you need to collect other data, such as biometrics, facial data, or post-test responses.

Question 5

Can I do eye tracking research myself?

Accepted Answer

Some suppliers offer DIY eye tracking services. They can supply the necessary devices, software or online platform, and support to help you run your own tests. In many cases, eye tracking devices may not be necessary because your target audience will have webcams with high enough resolution to support the research. However, you may want the supplier to provide other instruments to measure biometrics or other responses, or perhaps the supplier can synchronize the research with respondents’ personal wearable devices. Eye tracking capture devices can include desktops, laptops, tablets, or smartphones. These suppliers have platforms that can help you set up visualizations of your stimuli, using their templates and tools to administer the type of test you need to run. These can use static images, animated images, and video to help you optimize your advertising, displays, products, and other offerings whose success depends on responses to visuals. These suppliers may also have panels of pre-qualified respondents who can participate in your research, and the platform may also have integrated survey capabilities so that you can ask respondents about the experience. They may have built-in tools to analyze and visualize data, whether in charts that display metrics such as dwell time or more graphic visualizations such as heat maps. If you are game, you can find a supplier to enable you to conduct your own eye-tracking research.

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