Purpose: Eye-gaze technology offers professionals a range of feedback tools, but it is not well understood how these are used to support decision-making or how professionals understand their purpose and function. This paper explores how professionals use a variety of feedback tools and provides commentary on their current use and ideas for future tool development.Methods and Materials: The study adopted a focus group methodology with two groups of professional participants: those involved in the assessment and provision of eye-gaze technology (n = 6) and those who interact with individuals using eye-gaze technology on an ongoing basis (n = 5). Template analysis was used to provide qualitative insight into the research questions.Results: Professionals highlighted several issues with existing tools and gave suggestions on how these could be made better. It is generally felt that existing tools highlight the existence of problems but offer little in the way of solutions or suggestions. Some differences of opinion related to professional perspective were highlighted. Questions about automating certain processes were raised by both groups.Conclusions: Discussion highlighted the need for different levels of feedback for users and professionals. Professionals agreed that current tools are useful to identify problems but do not offer insight into potential solutions. Some tools are being used to draw inferences about vision and cognition which are not supported by existing literature. New tools may be needed to better meet the needs of professionals and an increased understanding of how existing tools function may support such development.
Keywords: Eye-gaze technology; computer access; decision-making; eye-gaze heatmaps; feedback tools; physical disability; qualitative research.
Professionals sometimes make use of feedback tools to infer the cognitive and/or visual abilities of users, although the tools are not designed or validated for these purposes, and the existing literature does not support this.Some eye-gaze feedback tools are perceived as a “black box”, leaving professionals uncertain as to how to usefully interpret and apply the outputs.There is an opportunity to improve tools that provide feedback on how well an eye-gaze system is working or how effectively a user can interact with this technology.Professionals identified that tools could be better at offering potential solutions, rather than simply identifying the existence of problems.