Mockup studies

The middle ground between image/video-based study and live website study is a "website mockup" study type.

Unlike the image/video study type, it allows creating multiple triggers (clickable areas) with redirections to different items on the page mockups (screenshots or videos). This is why participants get the feeling of browsing a real website during the test, but, in contrast to a live website study, you get aggregated heatmaps like for an image-based test.

In the study settings, you can set the following:

• study name
• allowed devices: desktop, smartphone, and tablet - panelists can participate using chosen devices,
• study time limit - as in a live website study, this is the maximum study time; there is no item display time in this kind of study; the maximum study time allowed depends on your license,
• mini survey - ask participants about their names, gender, and age at the end of the study,
• highlight mockup hotspots after a click - with this option enabled, after clicking a non-clickable area, participants will see active areas (triggers) highlighted for a second (this might help with navigation, as they would see what can be clicked),
• control participants' head position - when a participant moves too much, we ask to correct his/her position (correct means a position in which the participant calibrated); this ensures better data quality,
• let participants see their results - every participant (if not redirected after the test) can watch his/her recording from the study after completing the task,
• enable external tool integration - set redirects after the test, read more here,
• eye-tracking setup - whether you'd like participants to use a webcam (default) or another eye-tracker to collect the data,
• messages before and after the eye-tracking test - optional messages you can use, i.e., to write study instructions.

In the next step, you can upload your items:

• images (screenshots) - single study can have up to 300 images in JPEG/PNG/WEBP format; max file size is 30 MB; min resolution 300 x 300 px, max resolution 15000 x 15000 px,
• videos - single study can have up to 100 videos; max file size is 500 MB.

You can also set up a standard RealEye survey at the end of the test - see more here.

There are no standard item settings - for every item, you can only set hotspots/triggers (clickable areas):

Each hotspot can be linked to the following:

• next item in order (you can adjust the item order on the study timeline, as in the standard image/video-based study - from top to bottom),
• finish test - when a participant clicks the area, the whole test is finished (i.e., when the "buy" button is clicked),
• unmute video (for video items) - clicking on this hotspot unmutes the video (mutes again when clicked for the second time),
• start video (when in viewport) - start displaying the video when the hotspot appears in viewport (on screen), i.e., when a study participant scrolls down to it,
• specified item - choose among the items you uploaded (the item can also be linked to itself).

For test enabled on smartphones, you can enable swipe to act as a click.

When every item has active areas set up, you can preview or run the study. As for any other type of study, share the participation link with your participants or order RealEye ones.

Study analysis works as for an image/video study type. (See: how to analyze heatmaps). The only difference are "views". Each time a participant sees the image/video during the test, it's counted as a separate view/participant.

NOTE: This approach causes a change in metrics - each view is calculated as a separate participant. So if a participant saw the image seven times during the test, but only three times looked at a particular AOI, the ratio is 3/7 (43%) and time ti first fixation is an average value from all the views.

You can filter out the number of views, i.e., to see only the first view:

See also our webinar about mockup studies: