Hard lessons learned: mobile eye-tracking in cockpits

Abstract

Eye-tracking presents an attractive tool in testing of design alternatives in all stages of interface evaluation. Access to the operator's visual attention behaviors provides information supporting design decisions. While mobile eye-tracking increases ecological validity it also brings about numerous constraints. In this work, we discuss mobile eye-tracking issues in the complex environment of a business jet flight simulator in industrial research settings. The cockpit and low illumination directly limited the setup of the eye-tracker and quality of recordings and evaluations. Here we present lessons learned and the best practices in setting up the eye-tracker under challenging simulation conditions.