Purpose: The eye tracking method reveals where the user’s gaze, and therefore attention is directed when performing a given task. This is one of the reasons why the method is already well established in websites marketing research. Our research aimed to find out what eye tracking reveals when evaluating different bibliographic information systems and how the obtained results compare with the results obtained with other, more conventional, research methods.
Methodology/approach: Based on the literature review, we designed a list of possible evaluation aspects with assigned eye tracking measures. We tested these in three user studies conducted between May 2019 and May 2022. 93 users participated in total. Retrospective and concurrent think-aloud, standardised user experience questionnaires and screen recording methods were also used in individual studies.
Results: The method is particularly useful for observing how users interact with elements on individual pages. It proved less useful in an explorative search scenario, where users browse many arbitrary pages. For optimal detection of potential usability problems, eye tracking has been shown to work well in combination with questionnaires or think aloud.
Research limitation: Eye tracking research is carried out on a small sample of users. Other limitations include our sampling method and the analyses being done on individual pages or smaller task segments.
Originality/practical implications: Based on the results of the research, we propose a framework that can serve as a basis and guide researchers when deciding which aspects of bibliographic information systems to evaluate with eye tracking and which measures to answering the questions posed.
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