Research Project GazeMining Develops the Future of Eye Tracking and Asks for Assistance
The start-up EYEVIDO and the WeST - Institute for Web Science and Technologies at the University of Koblenz-Landau will investigate the future of usability studies with eye tracking and interaction analysis over the next two and a half years. In their joint research project GazeMining, they will develop efficient solutions that enable and simplify eye-tracking and mouse analyses on highly dynamic websites. The goal is to provide a simple and efficient tool for optimizing the usability of websites.
Approximately one billion websites are operated worldwide. Good usability, i. e. user-friendliness, is of elementary importance in order to satisfy customers and to survive on the market. Usability tests are used to optimize user-friendliness by allowing test subjects to carry out test tasks under observation to reveal operating problems.
The fast progressing development in web design towards visually more complex and dynamic designs requires a continuous development of existing concepts of usability testing. The recording of user interactions, eye tracking data and visual content is becoming increasingly demanding. In addition to that, the evaluation for experts is becoming more and more complex.
The goal of the researchers is to facilitate the simple execution of usability studies on dynamic web content of a broad user group by means of an intuitive user interface and algorithmic support during the evaluation. Even users with little previous knowledge should be able to evaluate the recorded data.
The research project is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) as part of the KMU innovativ programme and has a total budget of one million euros. The duration of the project is two and a half years. Several well-known associated partners support GazeMining in terms of content by providing feedback and prototypical use of the solution. These include Markant AG, Europe's largest retail and service cooperation in food retailing, GfK as Germany's largest market research institute and eresult GmbH as one of the leading UX service providers in Germany.
As a first step, the research team asks commissaries for usability to provide requirements and wishes for the system to be developed. The resulting usage requirements will form the foundation for subsequent development. Every input is welcome! Who would like to participate can gladly contact www.gazemining.de.
Contact:
Dr. Claudia Schon
Institute for Web Science and Technologies (WeST)
Universität Koblenz-Landau
Campus Koblenz
Universitätsstr. 1
56070 Koblenz
Tel: +49 261 287 2773
E-Mail: schon@uni-koblenz.de