Comparing RealEye study types

RealEye offers six study types. This article compares them: what each one is, what you provide, how participants interact, and which results you get.

#The six study types

When you click New Study, the study types are listed in two groups:

• Basic study types: Images and Videos, Interactive Mockup, Embedded Website, and Screen Recording.
• Auto-generated environments: Instagram Mockup and Shelf testing.

Two of them are marked BETA, which means the feature is still being improved and its details may change: Embedded Website and Shelf testing.

This table is a quick overview. Aggregated results means whole-group results, combined across all participants. The sections after it describe each type in more detail.

#Images and Videos

This is the simplest study type. You upload images, videos, or both, and RealEye shows them one after another in the order you set on the study timeline. Participants look at each item, and you get gaze data for it.

• What you provide: the images or videos you want to test.
• Click and navigate: optional. Participants view the items in the order you set, and you can turn on the Finish on click item setting so that clicking a defined area ends the item and moves on to the next one; it is off by default.
• Aggregated results: yes.
• Best used for: testing single visuals such as advertisements, product photos, banners, and packaging, and comparing two versions of the same visual.

#Interactive Mockup

You build a clickable copy of a page or an app from screenshots or videos, then connect the items with clickable areas (hotspots). Participants feel as if they are browsing a real page, but every step is one of the items you prepared. You can set rules such as which item follows a click and how long an item stays on screen.

• What you provide: screenshots or videos, plus the clickable areas that link them.
• Click and navigate: yes. Participants click the areas you defined to move between items.
• Aggregated results: yes.
• Best used for: testing a path through several screens, such as a checkout flow, without needing a live website.

Note about views: in an Interactive Mockup, each time a participant sees an item it counts as a separate view, and each view is counted as a separate participant. For example, if a participant sees an item seven times but looks at one Area of Interest (AOI) in only three of those views, the ratio is 3/7 (about 43 percent), and time to first fixation (how long until a person first looks at that area) is an average of all the views. You can filter the results to show only the first view.

#Embedded Website (BETA)

You add the RealEye JavaScript software development kit (SDK) to your own live website, then map the parts you want to measure as AOIs in the RealEye dashboard. The tested website must allow itself to be shown inside another page (embedded). Participants browse the real, working website, and you still get whole-group heatmaps and metrics.

RealEye analyzes the study on a static screenshot of the page, so parts that change, such as pop-ups and carousels, are measured through the AOIs you mapped.

• What you provide: a live website with the RealEye SDK added, and the mapped AOIs.
• Click and navigate: yes, on the real website.
• Aggregated results: yes.
• Best used for: measuring attention on a live website while still getting whole-group results.

#Screen Recording

Participants open your web address and browse the real website while RealEye records their screen and their gaze. Every participant follows a different path, sees different advertisements, and uses a different screen size, so you get a separate recording and a separate heatmap for each person. RealEye does not combine these into whole-group results.

• What you provide: the starting web address, plus a task or an instruction for participants.
• Click and navigate: yes, on the real website.
• Aggregated results: no. Each participant gets their own recording and heatmap.
• Best used for: smaller qualitative studies where you want to watch real behaviour, for example finding information on a website.

#Instagram Mockup

You build a mobile, Instagram-style feed from your own images and videos. Participants scroll the feed and click on it much as they would in the real app. RealEye records gaze, clicks, and scrolling.

• What you provide: the images and videos that make up the feed.
• Click and navigate: yes. Participants scroll and click through the feed.
• Aggregated results: yes.
• Best used for: testing social media style content, such as advertisements, sponsored posts, and campaign images.

#Shelf testing (BETA)

You build a virtual shop shelf from product pictures and a spreadsheet. A shelf is made of bays (upright sections, a little like one section of a supermarket aisle) and rows (the shelf boards inside a bay). You choose how the shelf behaves: Previewing items, Finish on Purchase, or Finish on Checkout. Participants shop it using the shopper actions Add to Cart, Select, Put Back, and Checkout.

• What you provide: product pictures and the spreadsheet that places each product.
• Click and navigate: yes. Participants can use Add to Cart, Select, Put Back, and Checkout.
• Aggregated results: yes.
• Best used for: product placement and packaging studies, and comparing different shelf layouts.

#Which study types give aggregated results?

Aggregated results means whole-group results, combined across all participants. Five of the six study types give aggregated results: Images and Videos, Interactive Mockup, Embedded Website, Instagram Mockup, and Shelf testing. Screen Recording is the exception: each participant gets their own recording and heatmap, and RealEye does not combine the data across the group.

#Participant limits

RealEye panelists (participants that RealEye recruits for you) cannot take part in every study type:

• RealEye panelists are not available for Embedded Website studies.
• RealEye panelists are not available for Screen Recording studies.
• RealEye panelists can join a study only if it is no longer than 10 minutes.
• RealEye panelists cannot be used when external tool integration is enabled in the study.

#Device and eye-tracker limits

• Screen Recording does not run on phones or tablets. Use a desktop or laptop computer.
• The default eye-tracker, RealEye Webcam v3, does not support phones or tablets, and it does not support facial coding (reading emotions from facial expressions).
• If you need a phone or tablet, or you need facial coding, use RealEye Webcam v1 instead. Selecting a phone or tablet as the fielding device switches the study to RealEye Webcam v1 automatically.

#Related articles

• Getting started with RealEye
• Interactive Mockup
• Embedded Website
• Screen Recording
• RealEye panelists
• Facial coding and K-coefficient
• Heatmaps: how to read and interpret them
• What are Areas Of Interest (AOIs)?
• Shelf Testing: how to build the spreadsheet