Answers for Self and Proxy – Using Eye Tracking to Uncover Respondent Burden and Usability Issues in Online Questionnaires

• Published in: Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction. Design for All and Accessibility Practice pp. 590 - 600
• Main Authors: Olmsted-Hawala, Erica, Holland, Temika, Nichols, Elizabeth
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Cham Springer International Publishing
• Series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science
• Subjects: eye tracking; proxy reporting; questionnaire design; respondent burden; usability
• ISBN: 9783319075082; 331907508X
• ISSN: 0302-9743; 1611-3349
• DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-07509-9_56

In a study of the American Community Survey online instrument, we assessed how people answered questions about themselves and other individuals living in their household using eye-tracking data and other qualitative measures. This paper focuses on the number of fixations (whether participants looked at specific areas of the screen), fixation duration (how long participants looked at the questions and answers), and number of unique visits (whether participants rechecked the question and answer options). Results showed that for age, date of birth and employment duty questions participants had more fixations and unique visit counts, and spent more time on the screen when answering about unrelated members of their household than when answering about themselves. Differing eye movements for proxy reporting suggest that answering some survey questions for other unrelated people poses more burden on respondents than answering about oneself. However, not all questions showed this tendency, so eye tracking alone is not enough to detect burden.