This presentation is based on a poster presentation presented at the 2008 PBIRG conference in Washington, D.C. It demonstrates how we used only eye-gaze information to improve critical metrics in ad that are related to later recall. Once the most important element within an ad is determined, we measure 2 critical metrics; \"time to first fixation\" and \"total gaze duration\".

1. HCD Research, Inc. Leaders in Advanced Communications Research

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6. Eye-Tracking

9. Eye-Tracking: History and Theory 1870’s: Scientific Study of Eye Movement Began 1900’s: Photography Improvements – Non-invasive Techniques 1940’s: Head-Mounted Eye-Trackers First Developed 1970’s: High Speed Data Processing & Cognitive Science 1980’s: Human - Computer Interaction Developed 1990’s: Commercial Applications Made Practical

11. Improving the Effectiveness of Print Ad Concepts Using Eye-Tracking Technology

12. Original Image for Magic Face

13. Gaze Plot This gaze plot shows the order of gaze fixations for 7 participants. Each “bubble” is at least 250 milli-seconds, and the size of the bubble reflects the length of the fixation.

14. Hot Spots Across All 21 Participants Across all participants, the visible areas in this ad reflect the areas that were looked at the longest.

15. Eye-Tracking Results: Average Gaze Time -- Average Gaze Time (in ms) for Ad Components -- Base: All respondents Eye-gaze information from a 6 second viewing. Gaze points were defined as fixations lasting at least 250 ms. n = 21 The ad concept was broken into 4 components, “Face and body”, “Headline”, “Tagline”, and “Product Image”. The average cumulative fixation length was then calculated for these areas.

16. Eye-Tracking Results: Time Until First Fixation -- Time Until Fixation (in seconds) for Ad Components -- Base: All respondents Eye-gaze information from a 6 second viewing. Gaze points were defined as fixations lasting at least 250 ms. n = 21 Because most people spend only 3 or 4 seconds on an ad before turning the page, it is critical to communicate your “main message” quickly. For this ad, the goal was to quickly communicate the brand name “Magic Face”. Therefore, the time it takes for people to look at the brand name is an important metric.

17. Recommendations Made to Improve Communication of the Brand Name “Magic Face” Improving the retention of a particular part element within an ad is deceptively simple… you want to place your “main message” close to where people are naturally looking. It’s part science, and part creative collaboration with the creative/design team. Through extensive research, we have shown that the longer an element is looked at, the more likely it is to be remembered. Generally, we need to look at something for at least 250 milliseconds before we begin to cognitively process that we saw something. With this understanding, we can make improvements to the layout of ads/web-pages by assessing, in our example, how long people are looking at the brand name (the longer the better) and how long it takes for people to first look at the brand name (the less time the better). Changes were made to the ad to improve the performance of both attributes.

18. Revised Image for Magic Face

19. Gaze Plot (Revised Image) This gaze plot shows the order of gaze fixations for 7 participants. Each “bubble” is at least 250 milli-seconds, and the size of the bubble reflects the length of the fixation.

20. Hot Spots (Revised Image) Across All 21 Participants Across all participants, the visible areas in this ad reflect the areas that were looked at the longest.

21. Eye-Tracking Results: Average Gaze Time (Revised Image) -- Average Gaze Time (in ms) for Ad Components -- Base: All respondents Eye-gaze information from a 6 second viewing. Gaze points were defined as fixations lasting at least 250 ms. n = 21 The ad concept was broken into 4 components, “Face and body”, “Headline”, “Tagline”, and “Product Image”. The average cumulative fixation length was then calculated for these areas.

22. Eye-Tracking Results: Time Until First Fixation (Revised Image) -- Time Until Fixation (in seconds) for Ad Components -- Base: All respondents Eye-gaze information from a 6 second viewing. Gaze points were defined as fixations lasting at least 250 ms. n = 21 Because most people spend only 3 or 4 seconds on an ad before turning the page, it is critical to communicate your “main message” quickly. For this ad, the goal was to quickly communicate the brand name “Magic Face”. Therefore, the time it takes for people to look at the brand name is an important metric.

23. -- Time Until Fixation (in seconds) for Ad Components -- Base: All respondents Eye-gaze information from a 6 second viewing. Gaze points were defined as fixations lasting at least 250 ms. n = 21 Comparison of “Pre” and “Post” Ads : Time Until Fixation Decrease in Time to Fixation (-1.28 seconds)

24. Base: All respondents Eye-gaze information from a 6 second viewing. Gaze points were defined as fixations lasting at least 250 ms. n = 21 Comparison of “Pre” and “Post” Ads : Average Gaze Time -- Average Gaze Time (in milli-seconds) for Ad Components -- Increase in Gaze Time (+282 milliseconds)

25. Qualitative Web Site Testing & Eye-Tracking

26. Gaze Plot – Disney Website

27. Hot Spots: Length of Gaze Fixations Across All Participants