Development of a Web-Based Eye-Tracking Tool for Usability Evaluation Studies

Abstract

This work aims to assist designers in overcoming usability design and development issues encountered during the development of digital products or services. Often, the lack of knowledge about how users will interact with the product leads to the development of difficult-to-use, unappealing,and unsatisfactory items. To solve this problem, designers have resorted to usability testing tools,such as eye-tracking. However, these technologies are not always accessible due to the high cost of acquiring hardware and software. To overcome this issue, this dissertation aims to develop a web-based tool that can be used by any individual, regardless of their abilities and experience, to conduct usability tests in a more accessible and affordable way, using webcam-based eye-tracking.

Having developed a fully functional prototype of an online image-based usability evaluation platform, we have concluded that it is not only possible to develop such a platform/tool but also that its usability provides an easy on boarding experience for conducting and participating in usability studies. Despite some irregularities/lack of precision in the analysis, this tool provides insightful results for easy inspection. Due to limitations, this tool has currently implemented features like heatmaps and the capability to export usability data in CSV format. However, the current system architecture allows for simple and easy implementation of future developments, such as gaze plots and other data visualization features.