Improving Usability of E-Commerce Sites by Tracking Eye Movements

Usability evaluation techniques such as user-observations, cognitive walkthroughs, or heuristic evaluations can be applied to evaluate the usability of multimedia interfaces of computer systems. Although user observations involve observing end-users or representative users interacting with the system these evaluations are limited in the amount of information they can provide. For example, if the user has difficulty interacting with the user interface in order to complete a task, it is not always obvious from the evaluation data, where and why the usability problem occurred. Additional information, such as the user’s cognitive processes and eye movements through the interface as he interprets the information on the display is required. Recording the user’s eye movements while he is completing a task is an objective way of collecting information about how the user is interacting with the interface. Eye movement recordings can provide a record of the pattern of fixations, the time the user spent looking at various elements of the user interface, and insight into the user’s visual attention.