What is iMotions Online?
iMotions Online is a fully browser-based experimental platform for collecting human behavioral data from anyone, anywhere. Through iMotions’ web-based browser application, users can create experiments and upload stimuli, before deploying their studies remotely via a URL. Remote studies can record eye-tracking, respiration and facial expression data via a webcam, including an optional screen recording. Analytics, visualizations, and data export are all done via the browser.
For you, this means that studies can be created, accessed, and analyzed by anyone on your team, anywhere – and data can be collected en masse from remote demographics without the need for expensive hardware.
What can I use iMotions Online for?
iMotions Online can be used for collecting webcam eye tracking and facial expression data on image, video, and website stimuli. Surveys can also be created and administered via Qualtrics and our in-app study editor. It is ideal for creating basic testing paradigms in marketing, communications, or consumer neuroscience; or if you wish to leverage the potential of biosensors in your research without the need for a central lab space. For educators wanting to use iMotions Online in the classroom, please see iMotions Education for further information.
What are the limitations of iMotions Online?
- iMotions Online can be accessed via any modern browser such as Chrome, Firefox or Edge.
- iMotions does not provide any panel services for the recruitment of participants. Our clients have successfully used third-party providers like Forsta, Prolific, Amazon mTurk, Qualtrics, CINT, or Sona Systems.
- It is good practice to keep studies as condensed as possible to ensure maximum accuracy for the webcam eye tracking and to ensure all participants can easily access your study. For example, we advise you to compress videos or images when possible or disable screen or webcam recording when data recording is not required. We recommend limiting image exposure to 30 seconds and video duration to 10 minutes.
- Biosensor data is much more variable when collected remotely, due to the compliance of your respondents and differences in experimental conditions. We recommended over-recruiting significantly to ensure that a sufficient amount of usable data is collected.
- Our webcam eye-tracking algorithm, while powerful, does not have the sub-degree accuracy of a conventional infrared eye tracker. It is also sensitive to talking, head movement, and the use of glasses, which can decrease accuracy further. Please refer to this article for information on our algorithm and a link to our whitepaper. When designing your study and creating areas of interest for webcam eye tracking, it is best to create large objects that have a buffer of space between them.