Identifying web usability problems from eye-tracking data

Eye-tracking research is increasingly used to supplement usability tests in both commercial and academic practice. However, while there has been research into links between eye-tracking metrics and usability problems, this has so far fallen short of establishing a general correlation scheme between the two. Consequently, practitioners are left to make subjective judgements when interpreting eye-tracking data. We address the lack of general guidance by proposing an initial correlation scheme based on data from an exploratory study which aimed to find a wide range of possible correlations between usability problems and eye-tracking patterns. User testing of two websites was conducted and a set of diverse usability problems was extracted from the data; these were then analysed and some were correlated with users' eye-tracking patterns. In addition to this initial correlation scheme, a further finding from this study is that usability problems are connected to not just a single eye-tracking pattern, but to a specific sequence of patterns. This sequence of patterns seems to arise from different coping strategies that users develop when a problem is experienced.