A Study Using an Eye-tracker and Cafe Images to Ascertain the Association between the Perception of Spatial Depth and the Customer's Intention to Visit

Abstract

The café has become an important representative "third place" where people study and rest. Hence, it is worthwhile for researchers to understand the needs of individual users as well as the requirements of people who visit such venues in groups. The identification of strategies that can help achieve larger, wider, higher, or deeper interior spaces in small and compact locations can generate benefits for both users and designers. In this study, where 56 interior design students participated, we used an eye-tracker and images of cafes to explore the relationships between spatial depth and the intention to visit a cafe space. The researchers digitally developed fifteen different conditions of space and measured the eye movements of the participants using an eye-tracker when they examined images that appeared to convey the most depth. Participants were also asked to imagine the proposed space images as cafes and to select one of the 15 images as the location that they would be most likely to visit individually and one that they would frequent in the company of other people. The research results revealed that certain ways of using interior design elements altered the participants’ perceptions of spatial depth without any change being effected to the actual volume or the size of the space. The participants tended to perceive a space with a small decorative artwork on a dark toned wall with unconnected furniture as deeper than a space with no or large artwork on a light toned wall with contiguous furniture. Spatial depth was a more important consideration for an individual visit than for a group visit. The results of this exploratory study will help scholarly understanding of the role played by spatial depth in customer intentions to visit a cafe.