Eye Tracking Limitations

In a previous article we looked at the benefits of eye tracking as a market research technique. With 100% accuracy, the ability to follow up to changes with ease, and the potential to get a great deal of information that can't be gleamed on its own, eye tracking is certainly a beneficial tool for researchers. But like all techniques, eye tracking has its weaknesses. Some of these weaknesses will be described below.

Cost Cost is the primary issue. Eye tracking can be substantially expensive. The technology alone is thousands upon thousands of dollars, and upkeep, software, etc. adds up quickly.

You can outsource this work, but the costs would still be fairly pronounced and you'd have to outsource a lot of work to use it in a lot of your product and market research campaigns. Also, because of the hefty equipment, chances are you would also need to pay your subjects a lot of money. Many of the studies that use eye tracking use smaller samples for this reason.

Not a Viable Stand Alone Method Eye tracking itself cannot be a standalone type of research. While tracking eye data is interesting, the data itself loses a lot of its meaning if you cannot also learn more about what the customer's opinions are of what they saw.

For example, if they saw something arousing or saw something they disliked, both would have the same data if they caught the eye first. You need some type of surveys or other data collection to know the effects of what the person viewed. Indeed, customer feedback is considered a standard part of eye tracking.

Small Samples Sample sizes are always important, even with something that delivers results with 100% accuracy. If you limit your sample to only 20 people, there is a chance (not always large, but a chance) that the 20 people in your random sample have something in common that cause them to visualize something differently than the rest of the population. Small samples are always problematic, yet due to the high costs of using and operating the machinery, small samples are expected.

This list is only beginning to touch the surface of some of the issues that eye tracking has as a data collection method. We'll look at a few others in the next article, and then end with some concluding thoughts.