Where do people look at during multi-scale map tasks?

Abstract. In order to design better pan-scalar maps, i.e. interactive, zoomable, multi-scale maps, we need to understand how they are perceived, understood, processed, manipulated by the users. This paper reports an experiment that uses an eye-tracker to analyse the gaze behaviour of users zooming and panning into a pan-scalar map. The gaze data from the experiment shows how people look at landmarks to locate the new map view after a zoom. We also identified different types of behaviours during a zoom when people stare at the mouse cursor, or during a pan where the gaze follows a landmark while the map translates.