Tracking readers’ eye movements can help your business

A person’s eyes reveal a lot of information that may benefit businesses. The direction of our gaze and the movements of our eyes offer insight into what holds consumer interest, likes and dislikes, and much more. All this activity is barely noticeable, occurring in milliseconds, but our unsteady eyes are a window into the black box of our brains.

Eye-tracking technology provides a way to gather data, understand it and utilise it. The data you gather will depend on the hardware/software package chosen, but there is also a general set of metrics that you can expect to retrieve, which include:

• Direction of gaze
• Number of fixations
• Time to first fixation
• Blink duration

The key piece of equipment needed to gather this information is an eye tracker, which can be mounted on a computer monitor or laptop, or even mounted on the user’s head. It uses a light source – infrared light for accuracy – which is directed toward the user’s eyes. A camera will then track the reflection of light and the movements of the pupil. For marketing purposes, visual tracking helps business owners to better understand their customers and what holds their interest, especially when tracking the visual impact of websites. This data can then be used to streamline workflow and improve usability.

The use of eye-tracking technology is certainly a novel concept to most people and needs to be taught to the next generation of innovators. Eye tracking is already making waves in the potential it holds for virtual reality and augmented reality. With the right equipment and resources, you may be able to use eye-tracking applications to improve your organisations bottom-line.