Radiologists must examine patient images quickly and accurately. The user interface for radiologists’ workstations can either help or hinder the effectiveness of this diagnostic tool. Atkins, Moise, and Rohling describe a study that tracks the eyegaze of radiologists seeking targets within artificial patient images while using one of two competing user interfaces. The eyegaze tracking allows the researchers to analyze the target-finding behaviors of their experimental subjects in detail.

The study compares two different user interface controls for selecting images for review. The first, the free user interface (FUI), allows users to select a pair of images independently by clicking on graphical thumbnails. The second and newer control, stages, has users select pairs of images with one click. Although the experiment was conducted with a comparatively small sample of users and images, the authors conclude that the stages approach allows users to complete their diagnostic tasks somewhat faster. Analysis of the eyegaze tracking data suggests that this is because the second interface control system reduces cognitive load. The authors propose enhancing their study by using a longer sequence of diagnostic tasks to see if their results hold when users become fatigued.