Browsing by Subject "eye tracking"

This master's thesis investigates how the saliency of user interface components affect users when they choose between two options. Many services have moved online and they usually ask their users to accept web cookies that are either necessary for the functioning of the service or improve it. Users are enticed to operate to the advantage of the service provider by offering an attention-grabbing salient option for acceptance. For this thesis, software was developed, in which users were presented with three types of dialogues, with a difference in visibility between the two UI components. The user was offered two normal buttons to choose from, a normal button with a background-free button, or a normal button with a link. The experiment had 20 participants who were monitored using eye-tracking camera glasses, and the speed and accuracy of their tasks were measured using timestamps at the clicking of a button. The tasks were so easy that almost all participants were able to choose requested action even though the task was asked to be done as fast as possible. The layout of the buttons had no statistically significant effect on speed, but the text of the button had: the quickest was to select the button that contained the text OK. In the experiment, the marking of the areas of the direction of the gaze was not precise enough to determine where the user first looks. However, statistically significant the fastest was to complete the task where the most salient option was the correct option, regardless of whether the user looked at only this side or both sides of the dialogue, or those cases where the right answer was a positive option on the right side of the dialog. Surprisingly, without the ecologically valid framing created by the task, the mere visibility of the component was not a significant factor, but the text of the UI component was.

This master’s thesis studies spontaneous gaze strategies when driving on a curved path. Methods used in many previous curve driving studies have not been sufficiently precise to differentiate between possible gaze strategies drivers use during cornering (Lappi, 2013, Itkonen et al. 2015). The methods in this thesis make it possible to differentiate between different gaze strategy predictions by comparing driver’s horizontal gaze velocity and half of car’s yaw rate. Waypoint hypothesis (WP), where gaze follows targets on the future path, predicts negative linear correlation and specific -1:1 ratio between horizontal gaze velocity and half of car’s yaw rate. Tangent point hypothesis (TP) and other travel point gaze strategies predict no correlation. In addition to previous study by Itkonen et al. (2015), the yaw rate is varied for quantitative analysis of the gaze behaviour and the experiment is conducted in two different environments, simulator and real test track, for reliability and validity. Gaze and car telemetry data was collected during a slow acceleration on a circular path in similar simulated (n=15) and real environment (n=4). As predicted by the WP hypothesis, the results show a very strong linear negative correlation between car’s half yaw rate and horizontal gaze velocity in simulator (-0.91) and strong linear negative correlation in test track (-0.75) and regression analysis shows slopes close to -1:1 ratio between the variables (simulator: -0.96 and test track: -0.79). The results can be clearly observed even on individual level. This suggests that primary gaze strategy when cornering in a curve is to pursue local flow on waypoints on the future path. The slight differences in results between simulator and test track experiment are discussed. These quantitative results contribute to making more precise models of driver behaviour, that can help advance autonomous car designs and driver-vehicle interaction models. The results also help to make gaze strategies and visuomotor process theories more measurable and comparable in different environments.

Ready meal market is a mature business sector in Finland where competitive advantage is hard to achieve. When trying to get a foothold of the ready meal category, is it worthwhile to make a packaging redesign? Consumers buying behavior is considered to be rational and utility driven, but the interpretation has been challenged. The thesis uses eye tracking methodologies in studying consumer behavior. With eye tracking, it is possible to quantify consumer’s implicit visual search behavior into measurable and analyzable form, without the interference of conscious interpretation of perceived stimulus. Thus eye tracking data can assist companies in understanding their customer’s behavior and in creating effective and relevant packaging and marketing decisions. This thesis will provide insight on consumer behavior, eye tracking, and packaging and seizes the conducted research data; is it adequate to proceed with brand owners old design or should they consider moving to a new and unconventional, market-disrupting package design?