Eye-tracking en masse: Group user studies, lab infrastructure, and practices

Maria Bielikova Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4105-3494
Martin Konopka Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava
Jakub Simko Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0239-4237
Robert Moro Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3052-8290
Jozef Tvarozek Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava
Patrik Hlavac Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava
Eduard Kuric Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava

DOI: https://doi.org/10.16910/jemr.11.3.6

Keywords: Group eye-tracking, eye tracking, gaze, infrastructure, group user study, user experience, usability, reading, interaction

Abstract

The costs of eye-tracking technologies steadily decrease. This allows research institutions to obtain multiple eye-tracking devices. Already, several multiple eye-tracker laboratories have been established. Researchers begin to recognize the subfield of group eye-tracking. In comparison to the single-participant eye-tracking, group eye-tracking brings new technical and methodological challenges. Solutions to these challenges are far from being established within the research community. In this paper, we present the Group Studies system, which manages the infrastructure of the group eye-tracking laboratory at the User Experience and Interaction Research Center (UXI) at the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava. We discuss the functional and architectural characteristics of the system. Furthermore, we illustrate our infrastructure with one of our past studies. With this paper, we also publish the source code and the documentation of our system to be re-used.