Investigating the traveler experience: the use of eye-tracking for urban design purposes

A methodology and a tool for studying visual perception in motion is presented. The focus is on the visualization of drivers along linear infrastructures, like highways. Taking into account the driver experience as the main reference, we propose a double approach for analyzing and designing both the infrastructure and the traversed (urban) landscape. These two elements, in fact, are parts of the same system and are inevitably interconnected. The main aim of the research is to propose a method and a tool for supporting the design phase that emphasizes the experience driven by design projects. Focusing on the continuous and dynamic experience of the observer we would like to encourage design projects that take into account the perceptual impact in time and space. The starting point and main reference of the study is the research, published as The View from the Road, conducted in the sixties at the California University (Berkeley) by D. Appleyard, K. Lynch and J.R. Myer. This research, which has prompted and anticipated the foundation of the first Environmental Simulation Laboratory, has remained quite unique in its approach to this topic. The new technological resources now available, allow to do a step forward in the same direction of that research and to go on with the study of a methodology that helps to figure out the experiential effects of design projects on everyday life. The tools we have developed for this purpose allow to analyze where different observers focus their attention while they travel. This can be done in real settings, to analyze the existing condition, or in simulated settings for envisioning possible (future or re-created) conditions. In this respect, we have pointed our attention on subjects that are moving in space, and especially on drivers that are running on highways. We have experimented a technique normally used for other purposes, especially in the field of marketing and people safety, namely eye/head-tracking. Using two synchronized cameras, one directed to the observed scene and another to the observer’s eye, it is possible to understand where the subject poses her/his attention on the scene (fixation and scanpath). By repeating the test on the same path a trend of the main attractors across a route is given: if the analysis is conducted on the existing condition it gives a framework to dynamically interpret the environment from an experiential point of view; if the study is conducted on a simulated environment it can give a feedback about the success of the designer desiderata. The technique was tested on a panoramic highway. At the moment, the number of people that have participated to the survey is not significant for validating the outputs related to the specific application. Nevertheless, the experimentation gives an important feedback on the possibility of the tool for supporting the understanding how people perceived urban/rural spaces. Since the applicability of the developed approach can be useful to better understand different kinds of open spaces (i.e. urban or rural, high density or low density), related to different kinds of usage/users (i.e. leisure or commuting user), and type and velocity of travelling (i.e. pedestrian or cycling), we are planning to test its usefulness in understanding the perception of urban public spaces.