Mousetracking visitors to evaluate efficacy of web site design

Objective assessment of website design is a complex task whose results are valuable for improving efficiency. Some of the commonly used methods, such as A/B testing, are relatively simple to implement but generally give only a rough summary of results. Eyetracking is one of the most efficient methods, but requires the use of expensive equipment and is not generally applicable to the web environment. Mousetracking is a far cheaper and implementable alternative to eyetracking and some studies indicate a high degree of correlation between the results of these two methods. This paper presents the architecture of a system for mousetracking, and the results of its use in a particular website.