Eye-Tracking Explorations in Multimedia Communications

Abstract

Two studies are reported exploring the usefulness of eye-tracking techniques in illuminating computer users' behaviour in conducting collaborative tasks while supported by multimedia communications. We describe how the technology was deployed and the data we derived to explore the use of visual cues in computer-supported collaborative problem solving. Participants made modest use of the video-link to their remote collaborator, devoting most of their visual attention to other onscreen resources. Varying the quality of this video-link did not influence its use. Eye-tracking was found to be a viable and useful evaluation technique in CSCW.