REyeker: Remote Eye Tracker

Abstract

Eye tracking allows us to shed light on how developers read and understand source code and how that is linked to cognitive processes. However, studies with eye trackers are usually tied to a laboratory, requiring to observe participants one at a time, which is especially challenging in the current pandemic. To allow for safe and parallel observation, we present our tool REyeker, which allows researchers to observe developers remotely while they understand source code from their own computer without having to directly interact with the experimenter. The original image is blurred to distort text regions and disable legibility, requiring participants to click on areas of interest to deblur them to make them readable. While REyeker naturally can only track eye movements to a limited degree, it allows researchers to get a basic understanding of developers’ reading behavior.