Automated eye-movement protocol analysis

This article describes and evaluates a class of methods for performing auto mated analysis of eye-movement protocols. Although eye movements have becom e increasingly popular as a tool for investigating user behavior, they can be extremely difficult and tedious to analyze. In this article we propose a n approach to automating eye-movement protocol analysis by means of tracing -relating observed eye movements to the sequential predictions of a process model. We present three tracing methods that provide fast and robust analy sis and alleviate the equipment noise and individual variability prevalent in typical eye-movement protocols. We also describe three applications of t he tracing methods that demonstrate how the methods facilitate the use of e ye movements in the study of user behavior and the inference of user intent ions.