Using Fixed and Mobile Eye Tracking to Understand How Visitors View Art in a Museum: A Study at the Bowes Museum, County Durham, UK

The following paper describes a collaborative project involving researchers at Durham University, and professionals at the Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, County Durham, UK, during which we used fixed and mobile eye tracking to understand how visitors view art. Our study took place during summer 2024 and builds on work presented at DH2017 (Bailey-Ross et al., 2017). Our interdisciplinary team included researchers from digital humanities, psychology, art history and computer science, working in collaboration with professionals from the museum. We used fixed and mobile eye tracking to understand how museum visitors view art in a physical gallery setting. This research will enable us to make recommendations about how the Museum's collections could be more effectively displayed, encouraging visitors to engage with them more fully.