Augmenting Traditional Performance Analyses with Eye Tracking Metrics

摘要

One hundred and nineteen military aviators were tasked with developing route plans for directing multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicles to search for targets with different values and probabilities of being found. Target icon visualizations were manipulated on the planning display's map, such that half the trials included either enhanced or simple icons. Plan quality performance was not impacted by icon type, but participants developed plans 11% faster with enhanced icons. Additionally, neither maximum pupil dilation nor mean pupil dilation, measured during planning, were statistically different between icon types, signifying similar levels of mental effort when interacting with either icon. Fixation analyses revealed that enhanced icons increased the proportion of time spent looking at the map and decreased gaze transition entropy, thus indicating more deterministic scan patterns. These findings demonstrate how augmenting performance analyses with eye tracking metrics provides a more complete understanding of how visualizations affect a user's interface experience.