A brief overview of the ways usability analysis aims to answer these and more questions, showing the range of understanding that can be gained, and included a practical demonstration of using eye tracking to understand what and how users REALLY think when using software and the web.

1. Sett UX Lab
What are Your Users Thinking?
Rob Walters
rob.walters@settuk.com

2. The Motivation / Why UX? Why eye tracking?
Background / A little history
How eye tracking works / The nitty gritty
How UX works / The UX process
Future trends / Where UX is going next
Demonstration / Eye tracking in operation
The Sett Group / Who we are and what we do
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3. The Motivation / Why UX? Why eye tracking?
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4. The Motivation / What is UX?
UX, or user experience, is the practice of developing
software, web sites, web portals and mobile apps
which is usable by design.
It includes disciplines such as:
- Interface
- Architecture
- Look and feel
- Behaviour
- Content
- Functionality
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5. The Motivation / Objectives & Problems
In an ideal world, UX is interwoven into the design
and development process as a fundamental
practice.
In the real world, UX is often ignored until a
problem makes it impossible to ignore.
Often this can lead to a vicious circle.
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6. The Motivation / Objectives & Problems
Great UX Can:
-
Make your users more efficient
Make your users more engaged with
IT, development or supplier
Help you provide a great customer experience
Make you the supplier of choice rather than
necessity
… Leading to increased ROI
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7. The Motivation / A Few Examples
When preparing any sort of usability
presentation, the first port of call for examples is
the poetically named:
www.webpagesthatsuck.com
A few examples taken from “Worst Websites of
2012”
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8. The Motivation / Apple iTunes Preview
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9. The Motivation / Pinterest
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10. The Motivation / This is Scunthorpe
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11. The Motivation / Software
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12. The Motivation / Software
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13. The Motivation / What is eye tracking?
Eye tracking measures where a user is looking as
they undertake a task.
Watching a user’s eyes move can give us an
objective insight into:
-
How easy a piece of software, web site or web
app is to us
-
And more importantly, how to improve it
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14. The Motivation / Why eye tracking?
Eye tracking can give us insights that talking to
users alone would not.
For example:
More women notice an advert with a pretty model
Whereas more men just notice the pretty model
It’s not just a pretty face – readers pay more
attention to a product if the model is looking at it too
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15. Background / A little history
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16. Background / A Little History
A desire to understand how users
read, understand, work and learn is not new.
Nor is looking at eye movements to give insight into
thought.
Experimental psychologists began studying eye
movements during the 1800s.
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17. Background / Early Eye Tracking
Louis Emile Javal (1879)
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18. Background / Early Eye Tracking
Raymond Dodge (1871-1942)
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19. Background / Early Eye Tracking
Alfred Yarbus
Russia
1962
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20. Background / Eye Tracking for Usability
1970s
Significant research established eye
tracking Early usability studies
included eye tracking fighter pilots
1980s
Interest in eye tracking for studying
computer interfaces develops
1990s
2000s
Advances in technology to make eye
tracking less obtrusive and more
portable
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21. How eye tracking works / The nitty gritty
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22. How Eye Tracking Works / Hardware
The commonest technique uses near-infrared
light, and measures the angle of light reflected by
the eye.
This angle can then be used to calculate where the
eye is currently looking.
Other techniques include image processing web or
video camera images to estimate eye position but
these are generally less accurate.
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23. How Eye Tracking Works / Hardware
Eye tracking glasses are available for
understanding mobile behaviour and
perception, for example how shoppers behave. The
newest generations allow real-time viewing.
Eye trackers will typically produce 15-120 rows of
data per second. 30-60 rows of data is adequate
for most commercial applications.
This data must then be interpreted
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24. How Eye Tracking Works / Software
The interpretation software is a significant
investment in the eye tracking setup.
There are off the shelf packages, which will
produce picture visualisations, videos and statistics
(some examples of these later).
For research or specialist applications, bespoke
software development is often used.
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25. How UX works / The UX process
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26. How UX Works / The Brief
UX starts with an objective. For example:
-
How can I make my users more efficient?
-
My users keep complaining they hate our portal
but can’t say why. What can we do?
-
How can we increase conversion from our
website?
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27. How UX Works / Planning
Designing a UX project will depend on:
-
The question to answer
-
The desired outcome – precise answers to
specific questions require far larger studies
-
The type of users – more highly paid or “scarce”
users are more expensive to study
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28. How UX Works / Collecting Data
Data collection usually involves:
-
Pre-screening participants – people with certain
conditions cannot be eye tracked
-
Interviewing participants before, after or both
-
Eye tracking the user, usually whilst undertaking
specific tasks.
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29. How UX Works / Analysis & Reporting
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30. How UX Works / Analysis & Reporting
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31. Future trends / Where UX is going next
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32. Future Trends / Inventive uses of eye tracking
-
Webcam based eye tracking
-
Eye tracking games
-
Eye controlled user interfaces
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33. Future Trends / Supplementing eye tracking
Eye tracking is great for telling you what users are
thinking about but not so good for telling you what
their feelings and emotions are.
Current trends include supplementing eye tracking
with:
-
Detection of emotion using facial recognition
-
Skin response and EEG to detect engagement
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34. Demonstration / Eye tracking in operation
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35. The Sett Group / Who we are and what we do
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36. The Sett Group / Our History
When The Sett Group was first founded in
2008, we knew we had to offer something special
to “make it” in the toughest trading conditions for
decades
What could Sett bring to an already crowded
marketplace?
We started out with 6 values which underpin
everything we do
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37. The Sett Group / Our History
Our Valued Clients
Our relationship with our clients is central to everything we do. We
strive for long term relationships, becoming trusted partners rather
than mere suppliers
Sharing the Goal
We make our clients’ goals our goals and our clients’ aspirations our
aspirations. It’s not enough simply to provide a technological solution
– we focus on the business need, strengthening and growing our
business through strengthening and growing our clients’ businesses.
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38. The Sett Group / Our History
Plain English
We don’t blind our clients with science – everything we do is explained
in plain English and delivered with honesty and integrity. We aim to
take the mystery and magic out of what we do, trusting our results to
speak for themselves.
Comprehensive Toolbox
We undertake regular training and proof-of-concept work, keeping
abreast of the latest technologies, to ensure we have a varied range of
tools and techniques at our fingertips. This allows us to recommend
the best solution - not just our favourite solution – to meet a client’s
requirements.
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39. The Sett Group / Our History
Holistic View
Nothing we do exists in isolation – every solution we offer to a client
must fit into the wider context. Key strengths are integrating systems –
apps, websites and desktop systems – and teamwork with clients and
other specialists to achieve the “bigger picture”
Bespoke Solutions
One size rarely fits all – an organisation’s individuality is it’s
strength, and our strength is our ability to thrive on our client’s
originality. We tailor our methodology, our approach, the solution we
offer and even how “bespoke” the solution is to each client’s individual
needs
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40. The Sett Group / Our Group
Sett – the core of the group handling web
development, apps, software and consultancy, Sett is where it all
started back in 2008
Sett Innovation Programme – our tech innovation incubator, focused
on collaboration, research and commercialisation between academia
and industry
Sett UX Lab - the baby of the group, fuses user centric design with
cutting edge user testing and market research techniques, backing the
art of our design up with hard science
The combination is a “can do” organisation, capable of offering total
web design, development and testing solutions.
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41. Thank you
for reading
Any questions?
Drop us a line –
hello@settuk.com
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