JUMPS!

Reading has deep connection with eye tracking. In 1879, Louis Emile Javal noticed that people do not read smoothly across a page, but rather pause on some words while moving quickly through others.

Somehow....
this statement arouse some questions in my mind, called it as "curiosity", about how reader move their eyes toward text... Are they always do that? sometimes we (as a readers) might not realize that we all JUMPS and JUMPS and JUMPS as we read the texts. I remembered that sometimes I would read only several words if I found the boring text... this kind of reading force my mind to be at limbo where I hold the books or look at the screen but my mind is in the dream world. No interactivity between me and the text that I saw. So, this could happen to everyone, couldn't it? and we do not what this happen, of course, why read when our mind is sleep (owh, I mean... day dreaming)?

Are the reader is too fast? too quick to be catch by text? so, instead of saying : the brown fox jumps over the lazy dog, it is better to say...  the quick reader jumps over the lazy text, is it?

Eye tracking

Eye-tracking research continued and led to better understanding in how our eyes and minds cooperate in digesting literature, problems, and images. It began to distinguish important differences in print and screen design.

For many years, eye-tracking was used as a tool in education research and by medical researchers and physicians more than anywhere else because it was so expensive. It wasn’t until later in the century that it became more accessible to a new niche: marketers.

Eye-tracking used for marketers and designers

In the 1980s, marketing groups really began using eye-tracking to measure the effectiveness of ads in magazines. Eye-tracking was able to determine what parts of a magazine page were seen, which elements of the page were actually read, and how much time was spent on each part. I found this interesting video about eye tracking in youtube:

Sadly, I don't have the machine to do my surveys. However, I was told each respondent to hold their pen or highlighter as they read the passage. I asked them not to pull their pen, remember the blind drawing? it has the same concept, except... they not do it blindly.