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3 EYETRACKING
Eye tracking is a set of techniques and methods to
measurethepositionofthesubject’seyesinrelation
to the visual scene. In this way a gaze point is
obtained.Eyetrackingitselfhasnotbeenincludedin
IMO’s “Guideline on Software Quality Assurance
andHuman
‐centredDesignfore‐Navigation”butit
meets criteria for both “Observation of users” and
“Performance‐related measurements” methods and
can be used efficiently in “Simulation” methods. It
has been proved as a valid method for usability
testinginmanypreviousresearches(Ehmke,Wilson
2007, Goldberg, Kotval 1999, Strandvall 2009).
Few
studies reported usefulness of this technique in the
ship’s bridge environment (Papachristos et.al. 2012,
Lutzhoft,Dukic2007).(JacobandKarn2003)reports
four most common eye tracking measures that are
usedinusabilitystudies,thoseare:
1 Fixation: a relatively stable eye‐in‐head position
withinsomethresholdofdispersion
(typically~2°)
over some minimum duration (typically 100‐200
ms), and with a velocity below some threshold
(typically15‐100degreespersecond).
2 GazeDuration:cumulativedurationandaver‐age
spatiallocationofaseries ofconsecutivefixations
within an area of interest. Gaze du‐ration
typically includes several fixations
and may
includetherelativelysmallamountoftimeforthe
shortsaccadesbetweenthesefixations.Afixation
occurring outside the area of interest marks the
endofthegaze.Insomestudies,thismeasureis
called“dwell”,“glance”or“fixationcycle”.
3 Area of interest: area of a display or
visual
environmentthatis ofinteresttotheresearch or
designteamandthusdefinedbythem(notbythe
participant).
4 Scan Path: spatial arrangement of a sequence of
fixations.
Dependingontheequipmentusedandtypeofa
study a number of other measures can be used. A
detailed list is given in (Holmqvist et.al. 2011) and
includes number,duration and frequency of blinks,
saccades direction and velocity and microsaccades.
Comprehensive eye tra cking study can give insight
intosearchefficiency (e.g.dueto poorarrangement
ofdisplayelements),importanceofspecificinterface
element, task difficulty and participant’s stress and
cognitivework‐load.
Usefulness of eye tracking techniques is
hamperedby severaltechnicaldifficulties relatedto
both data collection and data analysis. Despite
technological advancement still around 10‐20% of
populationcannotbetrackedreliably,thisisusually
thecasewitholderparticipantsthathaveanykindof
visualimpairment
andhavetouseeitherglassesor
contactlenses.Anotherproblemisrelatedtothefact
that each eye position is given in vertical and
horizontalcoordinatesinasystemthatisfixedinthe
eyetracker–headframe.Thismeansthatwhenusing
a stationary eye tracker, the participant should
restrict
head movements to a small area (about a
cubicfoot).Whenamobileeyetrackerisused,which
istheonlyreliablesolutionwhenconductingastudy
onaship’sbridgesimulator,fixationcoordinateshas
to be transformed into a ship’s bridge coordinate
system. Thishas to be done manually
using frame‐
by‐frameanalysisoradedicatedsoftwarethatallows
for fixation‐by‐fixation mapping. Both methods are
very laborious and time consuming and present a
seriousdrawbackforanystudywithaconsiderable
number of participants and long scenarios. Last
majordifficultyisrelatedtodatainterpretation.Eye
trackingdataanalysiscanproceedeithertop‐down−
based on cognitive theory or design hypotheses, or
bottom‐up−basedentirelyonobservationofthedata
withoutpredefinedtheoriesrelatingeyemovements
to cognitive activity (Goldberg et.al. 2002). For a
usabilitystudyitisimportanttocloselyexaminethe
data stream and
relate it to the current task and
environment. For example, when considering long
fixations during an ECDIS’ Usability Testing all
external factors have to be identified before a
statement abouthigher difficulty of the task can be
made.
4 FRAMEWORKFORECDISUSABILITYTESTING
IntheenvironmentoftheFullMission
Ship’sBridge
Simulator(FMBS)inMUStheUTprocessofthetwo
Kongsberg manufactured ECDISes, SeaMap 10 and
K‐Bridge 7.0, was conducted in accordance to the
recommendationssetbyIMO.Thegoalwasdefined
as “to pla n and display the shipʹs route for the
intended voyage and to
plot and monitor positions
throughoutthevoyage”,basedonSOLASregulation
V/19.2.1.4.Similarly,functionalrequirementsforthe
ECDISes were defined based on the IMO’s ECDIS
performance standard (IMO 2006). The following
functional requirements related to the nautical data
handling necessary for safe navigation, with the
followingsub‐requirementsweretakeninto
account:
1 Chartdatahandling(forinstance:changedis‐play
orientation,mode,etc.);
2 Own ship data handling (for instance: read
position,speed,etc.);and
3 Trackedtarget(TT)andradardatahandling(for
instance: show TT symbols overlaid on ECDIS
chartarea,etc.).
In the case of ECDIS, the
“usability” can be
evaluated in terms of user effectiveness and
efficiency for each of the ta sks and overall
satisfaction of the system (for example through
subjectiveevaluationbyTLandSA).Ashighlighted
in the Table 2, the measures of effectiveness were
relatedtothedifficultyandcompletenessofthetask
execution. The achievement rate was used as a
measureof“effectiveness”andquantifiedbythefour
levels: “1. Smoothly”, “2. Not smoothly”, “3. With
errors”, “4. With suggestions”. Usability outcomes
werebased on thedialogueprinciples,as identified
in(ISO 9421‐110:2006),using UTmethods based on
(IMOMSC.1/Circ.1512,ISO/TR
16982:2002).
The specific scenarios and tests, tasks were
created to satisfy the functional requirements. The
following are the tasksfor abasic display handling
scenario:
Task 1: Adjust display modes and scale to meet
operatorʹsneeds
Task2:Obtaininformationaboutalighthouse
Task 3: Measure the
bearing and distance to a
land‐mark