There is a fast growing career opportunity in the web industry: measuring website usability by tracking the eye patterns.

Tip of the hat to Branding and Marketing for news on this latest science:

Check out this video of Eye Tracking Studies on computer screens. Aaron Rosenberg, usability lab business manager, narrates how eye-tracking is used as part of the Information Architecture and Knowledge Management (IAKM) discipline and for commercial purposes, and demonstrates the eye-tracking technology available in Kent State's usability lab.

In the recent edition of e-inside (Kent's newsletter) they had this to say about eye tracking:

Eye-tracking technology measures a computer user's point of gaze-it tells researchers precisely where a person is looking on a computer screen and it can also detect how long.

Results from eye-tracking studies can be used for a variety of purposes, such as improving Web usability and design.

I wonder how surprised we might be to find where our reader looks; what draws there attention and what doesn't. Not sure how affordable this is now, but it if were - would you check it out?

Deborah Chaddock Brown