Text 2.0 (and eye-tracking in general) Review

by Bobby Karalla

Description

Text 2.0 is an eye-tracking technology that can measure and analyze where readers look on the page while reading text. It's designed to basically let authors identify the sections of their writing that are difficult to get through, or things that readers found particularly interesting. Also, it can translate foreign languages or provide explanations of antiquated words.

Access

The cost of the program itself and others like it from the same developers is free; all you need is actual eye-tracking hardware, which can get pretty costly pretty quickly. Fortunately, the cost of eye-tracking technology has been cut in half in the past few years, and is now somewhere below $15,000 depending on quality.

Sample Usage

Here's a link to a YouTube video. Here's the actual good one. Because of the barrier of entry, it's pretty impossible for me to actually have used eye-tracking technology, as I haven't been able to stumble upon a small fortune.

What the Tool Does Well

Text 2.0 and other eye-tracking technology has done wonders for advertisers, newspaper designers and the authors this technology was originally created for. It's revealed where users/viewers look first, second and third, where they focus most often and (probably most importantly) what they don't look at.

What it Does Poorly

For Text 2.0 (and I guess all the tools related to eye-tracking) the barrier of entry based on cost is so severe that there's really no way for the Average Joe to leverage the technology for their own good. However, sort-of-related technology is being developed that will give regular people like you or me the capability to receive (and likely eventually send) text messages via contact lenses. As eye-tracking has become more and more common, the cost has continued to drop. The trend will ultimately continue until regular consumers are able to afford it. However, the biggest beneficiaries of any type of eye-tracking are those who rely on user/consumer analysis, namely authors and advertisers. Therefore, there isn't necessarily a huge use for Text 2.0 for an average person. That's its biggest weakness.