A pilot investigation of the association between eye-tracking patterns and self-reported reading behavior

Abstract

Eye-tracking data combined with post-task debriefing was used in an exploratory usability study of two different stimuli: cover letters for a Web survey and the login page of the survey. Eye-tracking metrics in the form of fixation duration and number of fixations per character were combined with a post-task debriefing to analyze participants’ information acquisition while reading the stimuli. Results show that participants read the letter and recalled salient portions of it. However, in the letter condition, while the eye-tracking data did not highlight any usability issues, the post-task debriefing identified areas of the letter that caused participants confusion. In the online Web survey condition, participants did not look at much beyond the center of the screen where the username and password fields were located. The post-task debriefing corroborated the eye-tracking data as the participants mentioned primarily focusing on the login information of the Web site.