Introduction - Measuring the User Experience: Collecting, Analyzing, and Presenting Usability Metrics - page 10

heavy statistical analysis. We feel this will help attract as many UX and non-UX
people as possible. Of course, we strongly encourage everyone to go beyond this
topic by creating new metrics tailored to your organization, product, or research
practice.
1.5 NEW TECHNOLOGIES IN UX METRICS
Earlier we stated that UX metrics apply to a vast array of products, designs, and
technologies. In fact, even with new tchnologies emerging every day, UX met-
rics still remain highly relevant. However, what does change (and quite rapidly)
are the technologies themselves that better allow us to collect and analyze UX
data. Throughout the topic you will get a sense of some of the newest technolo-
gies that might make your job a little easier, and certainly more interesting. We
wanted just to highlight a few of the latest technologies that have emerged in
the last few years.
There are some exciting new advances in the world of eye tracking. For
decades, eye tracking was restricted to the lab. This is no longer the case. Within
the last couple of years, two major vendors in eye tracking (Tobii and SMI) have
released goggles that can be used to track eye movements in the field. So, as
your participant is walking down the aisle at the supermarket, you can gather
data on what he/she is looking at and for how long. Of course, it is a little tricky
when different objects occur in approximately the same location and at different
depths. But, no doubt they are improving these goggles with each new release.
Eye tracking is even moving beyond hardware. For example, EyeTrackShop
has developed technology that collects eye movement data through the partici-
pant's webcam. So, no longer are you restricted to being in the same location
as your participants, now you can literally collect eye-tracking data with anyone
in the world, assuming they have an Internet connection and a webcam. This
is a very exciting development, and it is certainly going to open up the market
for eye-tracking data to many UX professionals who did not have, or could not
afford the hardware.
Another exciting new technology is in the area of affective computing. For
decades, UX professionals have gained insight into a user's emotional state by
listening to and observing the participant, and of course asking all the right
questions. These qualitative data have been, and will always be, extremly valu-
able. However, advances in affective computing have added a new dimension to
measuring emotional engagement. Companies such as Affectiva combine data
from sensors that measure skin conductance, along with facial recognition soft-
ware that anayzes different facial expressions. Together, these two pieces of data
tell the researcher something about not only the level of arousal, but the valence
(whether it is a positive or negative emotion).
There are a host of new unmoderated usability testing tools that make data col-
lection very easy and affordable. Some tools such as UserZoom and Loop11 are