There has been a lot of discussion over the past few years about the value of Eyetracking. For those unfamiliar with the theory behind this technology, UXmatters author Jim Ross provides an overview of the process:

Eyetracking detects where a person’s fovea fixate and the movements in between fixations. The fovea is a small spot on the retina that is responsible for our fine, detailed vision. Outside the fovea, visual acuity decreases greatly. Our eyes constantly move in rapid bursts called saccades, with brief stops called fixations, during which we take in visual information through our fovea. We use our parafovea—the area just outside the fovea—and peripheral vision to determine where to fixate next.

Several thought leaders in the field of User Experience (UX) have shared findings and methodologies about Eyetracking in the past few years.

Most recently Kara Pernice and Jakob Nielsen shared their experiences and recommendations in the white paper, Eyetracking Methodology.

Luke Wroblewski, Senior Director of Product Design at Yahoo! and author of Rosenfeld Media’s Web Form Design – Filling the Blanks makes several references to the value Eyetracking and Heat Maps in creating more useful online forms.

However there have been a couple of key issues facing organizations wanting to incorporate Eyetracking as part of their User Experience process. The first being the technology itself, and the second being financial.

As Robert Stevens from Think Eyetracking noted in a recent blog post, the technology in and of itself can be a distraction to those engaging in Eyetracking sessions:

…users are often enamoured by the eye tracking technology and the results it produces. This takes the focus away from the user’s experience of the website and focuses it on the eye tracking technology.

The other issue is the sheer cost of both purchasing the technology and running the sessions. Testing even a small group of users can cost thousands of dollars, which in the current global economy, is simply unrealistic for most organizations. (Unless of course you have a budget like Google who use Eyetracking extensively.)

Dr. Tal Schwartz and his team at ClickTale Web Analytics have created an ingenious solution that resolves these barriers, providing greater insight and context into visitor behavior:

Independent research shows that there is an 84% to 88% correlation between mouse and eye movements*, allowing us to create high-precision heatmaps based on just the users’ mouse movements. In addition, our heatmaps don’t require the subjects to wear a special headset or use special equipment. Indeed, most visitors aren’t even aware they’re being recorded, allowing for a completely transparent and anonymous usability testing process.

It is this kind of innovation and creative thinking that makes ClickTale, in my professional opinion, the best web analytics solution on the market today.

Many web analytic tools overwhelm people with statistics that at best provide glimpses into possible changes, or at worst, steer organizations in the wrong direction based on assumptions of what the raw data actually means.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, this solution could well be worth thousands of dollars to organizations, regardless of company size and/or budget.

.