Integrating Eye Tracking into a Visual Merchandising Classroom; An Exploratory Study
Utilizing Tobii Eye Tracking Technology, my thesis provided Visual Merchandising undergraduate students Eye Tracking data. This data served as a blueprint for students to revise their displays in order to better capture consumer attention.
Abstract
This study integrated eye tracking into a visual merchandising class utilizing Blooms Taxonomy of Educational Objectives as a pedagogical framework and tested to see if the use of eye tracking benefited student learning of visual merchandising concepts and applications. Blooms Taxonomy served as a framework to organize the student’s learning experiences from lower level cognition (e.g., factual knowledge) to higher-level thinking (e.g., metacognitive knowledge). Results found that students were able to positively acquire each the four knowledge domains of
Blooms Taxonomy while also enacting each of the cognitive process domains in this same framework. Eye tracking visualizations and metrics show that students who were educated on eye tracking concepts created more focused and engaging large branded window displays than students who did not. Responses regarding course satisfaction and use of eye tracking from students were overwhelmingly positive, showing the significant impact eye tracking had in this visual merchandising course.
Results
Attention before receiving Eye Tracking data
Attention after receiving Eye Tracking data
An Eye Tracking heat map (above) shows the variation of attention through colors. Low attention is green and high attention is red, similar to a human body heat map.
Students revised their window and results show participant attention was more focused on the salable garment.