Eye tracking gives researchers insight into users’ emotions and unconscious reactions to interfaces. People usually focus their attention on what they are looking at. Because of this, tracking the length of time spent looking at an area can be a good way to indirectly analyze people’s cognitive processes. This is what makes eye tracking such a valuable tool in interface and experience design.

Sometimes, being able to watch users in the lab is important for understanding their interactions with a product. Other times, requiring participants to come to the lab constrains the pool of participants we are able to recruit. Being able to conduct remote study sessions means that we can cater to the needs of clients with tricky recruiting profiles or a widespread user base, making us and our clients happy with the research process.

A typical user research session involves working with a single participant for about an hour. During this hour, we investigate a product or concept that's new to the participant and learn about how easy or difficult it is to discover and learn features of the product. But what about learning how people use the product after this discovery phase has passed?