Category:User experience -> UX strategy -> Usability

Value/legitimacy of eyetracking is evenly split among UX practitioners. Eyetracking is incapable of handling web apps or dynamic elements including Ajax or even dropdown menus. Eyetracking results are therefore valid for only an increasingly small part of UX.
A chart of eye fixations versus layout density shows minimal correlation, demonstrating that busy pages simply dilute attention from the most important information.
An advertisement has a 36% chance of being seen by a user, a figure surprisingly unaffected by user task.
Eyetracking demands specificity: carefully planned tasks on an individual site.
The book clearly used Internet Explorer 6 for testing. Many findings must be nullified because IE6 doesn’t support tabs. In IE6 a link is binary: go there or stay here. Modern browsers offer an alternative: Open in new tab, allowing tentative or plural navigation. IE6 also lacks a built-in search box in the user interface.

Two of the more recent approaches to usability testing are remote usability testing and unattended usability testing.