Course 01: Eye Tracking (2022)

This course was held in 2022.

Dates: 29th August – 9th September 2022

• Lecturer: Michael Burch
• Course responsibility:
• Course type: Compulsory Optional Subject (Summer School)
• Related degree levels and programs: BA/MA
  • BA/MA in Information Science
  • BA/MA in Digital Business Management
• Workload: 120 hours
• Credits: 4 ECTS
• Course abbreviation: ET

Michael studied computer science and mathematics at the Saarland University in Saarbrücken, Germany. He received his PhD in 2010 from the University of Trier in the fields of software engineering and information visualization. After having been a PostDoc at the Visualization Research Center (VISUS) in Stuttgart, he moved to the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands as an assistant professor in visual analytics and eye tracking. From October 2021 he works at the Institute for Data Analytics, Visualization, and Simulation (DAViS) in Chur, Switzerland.

Exploring the usefulness of interactive visualizations or visual analytics systems is a challenging task, however, using eye tracking to track the users’ eye movements can be of great help to identify certain design flaws in the visual stimuli. On the challenging side, such eye tracking experiments generate another kind of data with a spatio-temporal nature worth analyzing. Hence, visual analytics can be a great support to find insights in such eye movement datasets with the goal to finally help to improve the shown stimuli. The problematic issue with this interdisciplinary field is the fact that we need profound knowledge about many related scientific disciplines to really solve the occurring problems – knowledge about visualization, human-computer interaction, visual analytics, eye tracking, user evaluation, data science, usability, and many many more.

Upon successful completion of the course students will be able to:

Knowledge

The participants learned the benefits of several eye tracking devices and the practical application of the technology.

Skills

Analyze and evaluate the recorded eye movement data with appropriate existing analysis and interactive visualization tools.

Competencies

Plan, design, and conduct an eye tracking study in a given context and environment

• Introduction to  Eye Tracking & Anatomy of the Eye
• Eye Tracking Technologies/History of Eye Tracking Research
• Hardware: Remote vs. Head-mounted vs. Wearable Eye Tracker
• Application examples: Static and dynamic stimuli
• Gaze-assisted interaction
• Eye Tracking Experiments/Evaluations
• Eye Tracking Data
• Software: Analysis of Eye Tracking Data
• Software: Visualization of Eye Tracking Data

After having taking part in the eye tracking course the students are able to plan, design, and conduct an eye tracking study in a given context and environment. Moreover, they are able to analyze and evaluate the recorded eye movement data with appropriate existing analysis and interactive visualization tools.

Contact lessons (60h):

• Theory teaching (everybody)
• Eye tracking techniques and technologies (everybody)
• Design of eye tracking studies (everybody)
• Analysis and visualization of eye tracking data (everybody)
• Results of eye tracking studies (everybody)

Accompanied self-study (40h):

• Designing one’s own eye tracking study (20h, group work)
• Experimenting with eye tracking data visualization tools (20h, group work)

Free self-study (20h)

Lecture with some topic-relevant exercises

70% Written report about eye tracking study design (group work, 4 pages)
30% Presentation (group work)

Eye Tracking and Visual Analytics, Michael Burch, River Publishers, 2022

Code Hub Co-working space (F. Tudmana 24d, 23000, Zadar)

Course schedule: from 9:00 to 16:00.