Use of Eye-tracking in Artworks to Understand Information Needs of Visitors

ABSTRACT

This study examined which accompanying information elements were noticed by visitors while they were looking at artworks, using eye-tracking experiments. First, we conducted an online survey to grasp the types of information that visitors wanted to know, and five elements were obtained. Second, we collected information on these five elements through interviews with one artist. Third, eye-tracking experiments were performed with semi-structured interviews. We set the information delivery media as follows: wall and mobile texts as commonly used in art museums. The results showed that patterns of eye movement of visitors were different according to the information delivery media. Also, we found that there was a correlation between the results of the eye-tracking experiment and visitor interest. This study has limitations in that it is an experiment limited to small sample size and artwork genre; however, it is meaningful in that it was able to grasp the information needs of visitors through eye-tracking.

Acknowledgments

We thank Noh Sang-ho for providing valuable information and Andrew Bruske for reviewing this paper. This work was supported by a National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIT) (No. NRF-2019R1A2C1007042), and by the Institute for Information & Communications Technology Promotion (IITP) (R7124-16-0004, Development of Intelligent Interaction Technology Based on Context Awareness and Human Intention Understanding).

Disclosure of potential conflict of interest

In accordance with Taylor & Francis policy and our ethical obligation as a researcher, we make sure that there are no conflicts of interest related to this paper, and no significant financial supports that could have influenced its outcome.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Taeha Yi

Taeha Yi is a Ph.D. student in the Graduate School of Culture Technology (GSCT) in KAIST, Korea. He earned his B.A. in Art Theory from Hongik University and moved to the GSCT in 2013. He is interested in understanding visitor in art museum through empirical studies using tracking technologies.

Mi Chang

Mi Chang is a Ph.D. student in Information-based Design Laboratory at KAIST. Also, she is an engineer, product designer and researcher. Her research is centered on HCI. She received M. Design, and B. Eng. in Electronic Communication Engineering. And she worked in LG electronics to develop TV.

Sukjoo Hong

Sukjoo Hong graduated with a Master’s Degree in Information-based Design Lab at the graduate school of Culture and Technology in KAIST, Korea. His research is to analyze the patterns of human behavior by using computational methodology within computer vision and network analysis.

Ji-Hyun Lee

Ji-Hyun Lee is an Associate Professor at the GSCT in KAIST. She received her Ph.D. in School of Architecture (Computational Design) at Carnegie Mellon University. Since joining the GSCT at KAIST, her research focus to three interdisciplinary areas: UX & service design, cultural DNA, and computational creativity