Objective: This study aims to analyze user's eye gaze movements in the seat selection process of online ticketing and to suggest ways to improve the design of online ticketing sites.
Background: Reservation sites for train tickets, plane tickets, movie and performing arts tickets, etc. always have a seat selection page. If the location of the information displayed on the seat selection page is appropriate and the interface is designed so that users can easily and quickly search for a desired seat, the usability of the web page will increase. For this purpose, a design guideline for the interface of the seat selection page is needed.
Method: Eye movements were measured on the seat selection page of three performing arts reservation sites. The seat display area for selecting a seat has a different color depending on the seat class and whether or not the seat is assigned.
In order to evaluate how the contrast ratios between these colors affects eye fixation duration, the color contrast ratios were derived and the correlation between color contrast ratios and eye fixation duration was analyzed. In addition, the seat selection page was divided into three areas, and the pattern of eye movement to the three areas was investigated. The predictable eye movement types and the observed eye movement types were compared.
Results: When comparing the three sites, the lower the color contrast of the seat display area, the longer the eye fixation duration of the participants. In addition, although 16 types of possible eye movement were expected on the seat selection page, only 9 types of eye movement were observed, and 83% of the observed eye movements belonged to 3 types of eye movement. Participants tended to search from the upper right corner of the web page, and did not tend to search for duplicated information.
Conclusion: The color contrast ratio between seat marking colors influenced seat visibility and eye fixation duration. It would be desirable to design the seat selection page according to the order of the seat selection task, arranging the information to be looked at first in the upper right corner, and designing the eye gaze not to be repeatedly moved.
Application: The results of this research might help to develop the interface of seat selection pages.