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KSU has eye on new venture
By Paula Schleis
Beacon Journal business writer
Published on Sunday, Mar 02, 2008
Aaron Rosenberg calls up a news Web site and starts perusing stories and images.
From an observation room behind him, a pair of assistants can almost read his mind.
They know every word he looks at and in what order. They know he spent two seconds looking at a book being held by the subject of a photo. They know when a link whisks him to exactly where he wants to go, and when he becomes frustrated with a search.
Now, businesses and organizations who want to read the minds of their Web users can tap into that same magic — for a price.
Kent State University is turning its ScanPath eye tracking laboratory into an entrepreneurial venture, a way to make money to support programs at the School of Library and Information Science while giving graduate students a chance to help real companies.
How it works
Rosenberg, the lab manager, demonstrated the uncanny ability of the $60,000 system, which he believes to be the only one in an Ohio university, and one of only a few in the state.
A tiny camera at the base of the monitor can track a pair of pupils 50 times per second,
pinpointing the eyes' focus down to a single pixel on the computer screen.
On a companion computer, a green ball shows the eyes' journey. Time stamps record the path. Heat maps indicate how long the eye lingers. A separate video camera captures the participant's facial expressions.
Then graduate students like Jacob Alonzo and Tony Turko put it all together to interpret the user's experience.
Recent experiment
In one recent task, for instance, subjects were told to look for digital cameras priced between $150 and $175 at two retail sites.
Researchers noted how participants spent minutes looking for what they needed at one site, while immediately finding what they sought at a competitor's site.
As important as judging a Web site's functions, the eye tracking system reveals much about human nature and common habits. Where we tend to look first (top left), what images draw us in (human faces), even gender differences (women like words, men like visuals.)
The brain reacts so quickly, the eye records so much, that people can only recall a fraction of what they saw and what actions they took when interviewed after an experiment.
''They're not thinking, they're just doing,'' Alonzo said.
System's benefits
But it's in the ''doing'' where Web producers find the clues they need to strengthen designs, fine-tune functions and create a smooth and intuitive experience for the user.
The system also can be used to monitor the behavior of someone watching a video. One recent prospective client was interested in testing infomercials. Rosenberg said he would find it interesting to research product placement in television and film.
The lab was created in 2004 when KSU launched a master's degree program in ''information architecture and knowledge management.''
Professor Greg Byerly said the expensive eye tracker was originally intended for purely academic research, a tool for students doing research papers and projects.
Only recently have KSU officials come to realize the university could be making money from the lab, for the lab. Rosenberg already has his eye, pun intended, on a more advanced tracker.
Cost of the service varies, based on the number of subjects and number of tasks to be tested. Rosenberg said a typical project would probably start at $10,000 to $12,000.
Ideally, the lab should be brought on board before a Web site is launched, he said.
''We'd do a baseline study and make recommendations for changes based on what users are really doing on the Web site,'' Rosenberg said.
''The goal,'' he said, ''is to iron out the problems before it goes up.''
Paula Schleis can be reached at 330-996-3741 or pschleis@thebeaconjournal.com.
Aaron Rosenberg calls up a news Web site and starts perusing stories and images.
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