What Are You Looking At? Using Gaze Following to Understand Web Browsing on E-commerce Sites: Insights from Eye-Tracking: An Abstract

Abstract

Although website designers consider aesthetic appeal and usability in designing web pages, it is important to understand which areas of website or design elements are more appealing and informative to visitors than other design elements. Visitors will most likely be more inclined to spend more time looking at more appealing design elements than others. In turn, these appealing design elements will have greater influence on the purchase behavior of site visitors than other elements on the site. Two underlying processes might play a role in directing visitors to pay more attention to certain areas of the site as opposed to other areas: inward bias and eye gaze following.

The objective of this research is to examine the effect of inward bias and eye gaze following on the web surfing behavior of individuals on e-commerce sites. Essentially, inward bias means that in framed images people prefer those images in which figures/people face inwards as opposed to outward, particularly when these figures/people are located away from the center of the framed image toward the periphery (e.g., Chen and Scholl 2014; Minton, Sperber, and Hernik 2020; Palmer and Langlois 2017; Palmer, Gardner and Wickens 2008). The space in front of the person in the image is inherently more interesting than the space behind the person in the image because it represents the area where future action will take place.

Gaze following can be defined as “the act of following another person’s line of regard” (Brooks and Meltzoff 2014, p. 171). Also, called deictic gaze, it “indicates spatial attention, suggests future actions, and defines the target of facial signals” (Shepherd 2010, p. 1). It serves as the basis of joint attention. The direction in which a person is looking indicates the objects he or she may be paying attention to, his or her interests, and possible intentions with respect to that object (Bock, Dicke, and Thier 2008).

In an experimental study (female participants, n = 66) using eye tracking technology (Tobii screen-based eye tracking hardware, X3-120, and Tobii studio software) this study found evidence of inward bias among users of e-commerce sites. Also, although evidence was found that supported operation of eye gaze following, it was not conclusive. These findings have implications for designers of e-commerce sites in terms of how models and other elements of the page could be oriented to make them more appealing to shoppers and potentially produce more positive results.