Poole and Ball’s “Eye Tracking in Human-Computer Interaction and Usability Research: Current Status and Future Prospects” gives an introduction to eye tracking technology with a brief history of its uses and designs. For our purposes as geographers, it is useful to think about to what ends this technology may be used, and how we can incorporate eye tracking into applications that are spatial in nature.
While the uses noted (user interaction with a website, text or tool) mostly focus on a stationary user looking at something that is fixed in space, incorporating motion into eye tracking analyses may be very illuminating. I think specifically of analysis of urban planning that might incorporate universal design to make cities easier to navigate, more physically accessible and more aesthetically appealing. By tracking where users look when moving through a set urban landscape, we could infer improvements such need for curb cuts, street sign placement and in more commercial interests, billboard and advertisement placement. The use of eye tracking might help planners to make cites more easily navigable. One could also use this technology in augmented reality applications such as virtual tours of a given place or in identifying points of interest.
One thing that I hoped the article would explore further was research methodology. It might be interesting to know how studies using eye tracking technology attempt to account for the inherent bias of a study who knows to be being observed, or the aims of a given project.
Wyatt
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