Research Article

Eye-Tracking Technology in Online Real Estate Rental

Table 2

Experimental task content and purpose.

Task numberContent of the taskTask goal

Part one: familiarize yourself with the experiment
 Task 1Limited time to browse the rental website search page, list page, and details page.To stabilize the emotions of the subjects and make them enter the experimental state; make the participants familiar with the basic information on the rental website, the instrument, and operation.

The second part: the entry retrieval experiment
 Task 2–4Freely browse the combination of three groups of accommodation location terms (each group has about 50 terms), look for “key terms,” and gaze for a long time (gaze lasts longer than 2 s); all the three groups of entries are arranged in a horizontal and random order (phrase a, b, c).1. Simulate the browsing behavior of tenants on the accommodation search page to obtain relevant eye-movement indicators
2. Discussion hypothesis: when the tenant searches and screens the accommodation location, it is more efficient to browse the accommodation location entry in alphabetical order than to browse it in random order.
 Task 5–7Freely browse the combination of three groups of accommodation location terms (each group has about 50 terms), look for “key terms,” and gaze for a long time (gaze lasts longer than 2 s); all three sets of entries are arranged in horizontal, alphabetical order (phrase a′, b′, c′).

The third part: renting behavior simulation experiment
 The last task of 8Freely browse the accommodation listings page and accommodation details page.1. Simulate the browsing behavior of tenants on the accommodation listings page and details page, and obtain relevant visual analysis results and eye-movement indicators
2. Explore the general rules for tenants to browse the accommodation information page.