[Sigia-l] All it takes is 50 milliseconds

[Adam Carter]

Trenouth, John wrote:
> So if an impression can be made in 50 milliseconds, then perhaps
> eye-tracking (to relate this to an earlier thread) *is* a useful tool to
> understand what messages users' eyes are taking in and shouldn't be so
> easily dismissed.

If we see someones eyes go up and left for a moment or two, does it mean 
that they are looking at the top left of screen? Are they accessing some 
deep memory on how to access this system? Are they just bored and day 
dreaming?

In my experience eye tracking is hard to define what the user is 
actually doing at any given time, and observers start making 
assumptions. I figure if I can't magically understand what my girlfriend 
is thinking at any given time, there is no way I'd understand what is 
going in some random strangers brain.

IMO eye tracking is useful for discovering why an attention attracting 
device isn't gaining someones attention. An example might be attempting 
to discover why 1/20 pilots miss a critical warning after 5 hours of 
flight. Where is the pilot looking (in general) and what is competing 
for their attention.

As a conjecture, I'd guess that the smaller the real estate being tested 
the less effective eye-tracking would be.

Adam