‘The eyes don’t lie’ How eye tracking doubles as a community research and pedagogical tool Kathryn M. Lambrecht Technical Communication, Arizona State University Kathryn.lambrecht@asu.edu ABSTRACT This experience report shares how eye tracking technology was incorporated into an introductory course on technical communi- cation, ofering students the opportunity to interface with a UX research tool that allows for direct feedback on multimodal projects. Discussing this project in light of research from the feld focusing on community-based research and accessibility, the potentials and limitations of eye tracking are discussed, along with examples of how assignment framing and context serve essential functions in grounding the tool in human-centered design. Refections on how eye tracking can be positioned as a technology that enhances stu- dent understanding of how their design work impacts communities are shared, including considerations for future projects and appli- cations of the technology in both pedagogy and research. CCS CONCEPTS · Human-centered computing;· Social and professional top- ics;· Applied computing; KEYWORDS Eye tracking, user-centered design, risk communication ACM Reference Format: Kathryn M. Lambrecht. 2023. ‘The eyes don’t lie’: How eye tracking doubles as a community research and pedagogical tool. In The 41st ACM International Conference on Design of Communication (SIGDOC ’23), October 26–28, 2023, Orlando, FL, USA. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 3 pages. https://doi.org/10. 1145/3615335.3623030 1 INTRODUCTION Eye tracking is a powerful method in technical communication because it merges technological innovation, visual communication, and research about how humans process design choices in real- time [1, 2]. Many of the values that technical communicators bring to their work are mirrored in the types of data that eye tracking can capture, given that the ultimate goal is to understand how an audience interacts with and processes visual stimuli. In their study of methods used in UX, Robinson, Lanius, and Weber noted that our feld tends to borrow methods from a variety of disciplinary traditions, but eye tracking is one of the few methods native to UX Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for proft or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the frst page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specifc permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from permissions@acm.org. SIGDOC ’23, October 26–28, 2023, Orlando, FL, USA © 2023 Copyright held by the owner/author(s). Publication rights licensed to ACM. ACM ISBN 979-8-4007-0336-2/23/10. . . $15.00 https://doi.org/10.1145/3615335.3623030 [3]. While it is a research tool that is interdisciplinary in nature and useful across multiple disciplinary contexts, eye tracking also holds potential to be used as a pedagogical tool to help technical communication students learn about how others interact with their designs and visualizations. In this way, one tool can be used to perform two essential functions of developing new experts [1] in technical communication: research and teaching. The potential of eye tracking to double as both a research and pedagogical tool has received little attention in the literature, es- pecially given that these types of studies account for a small per- centage of overall work within the feld [3, 4]. In response to calls for more consistent methods used in technical communication, UX, and visual design [1, 4], this experience report ofers an example of how the eye tracking method could be grounded in a larger method- ology that encourages human-centered design, which Rose argues ofers an approach that accounts for both design and structural critique [5]. Human-centered design is of central importance to this project because the context this report emerges from involves community-centered research. Rather than designing for abstract users, the project that inspired this report involved students de- signing extreme risk visualizations for a specifc audience in a local community, specifcally vulnerable populations living in Peoria, Arizona during the summer months. This report will discuss how eye- tracking was used as part of this community engaged course where students conducted community research and produced ex- treme heat infographics in collaboration with city ofcials working to communicate heat risk more efectively in their communities. While the eye tracking component was only one part of this project, this report will argue thatÐgiven the proper development, context, and framingÐvisual technology can play an essential role in helping students prepare multimodal projects that are community relevant, grounded in human-centered design, and capable of preparing de- veloping experts to engage with technological tools and innovations without losing sight of their connection to the humans that designs are created to help. 2 PROJECT OVERVIEW The community collaboration at the center of this experience report involved a Fundamental of Technical Communication course that was paired with a community partner arranged through a program called Project Cities. The goal of this project is to match courses at the university with local and city needs, such that the community partner can beneft from the work of dedicated students working to solve a community problem and students can beneft by engaging in course work that makes a diference in their communities and is showcased at the conclusion of the course in a community event. In this case, the class was partnered with the city of Peoria, Arizona, 174