Eye Fixation Metrics for Large Scale Analysis of Information Visualizations

What can an observer’s eye movements reveal about how the observer interacts with and processes an information visualization? And conversely, how can these eye movements be used to make inferences about the effectiveness of the visualization and the design principles employed? With reference to previous research in eye tracking, psychology, and human-computer interaction, we discuss some eye fixation metrics that can be used as tools for answering these questions specifically, in application to information visualizations. We also present techniques to visualize some of the properties of fixation behavior that these metrics aim to capture.