Oculid, a Berlin-based startup that offers an eye tracking platform for market and UX research on smartphones, has released an app for iOS, which now enables eye tracking research on Apple mobile devices. The app was available for Android since 2020 and allows research participants to join eye tracking studies from anywhere in the world using only their own smartphones. Now, anyone using Android or iOS mobile phones can join a test without the need for dedicated equipment or a laboratory.

Oculid offers a web-based platform where companies can set the tests to measure attention and a mobile app for participants to join the test. Researchers can design an eye tracking test with multiple URLs, videos, and images to test the efficiency of ads, packaging, social media posts, and more. Participants can join the test by downloading the app on their mobile phones and, after going through the calibration process, complete the tasks. The data is then made available to the researchers after a few minutes. The metrics obtained through an eye tracking study can show where people looked, and for how long, giving insights on visual attention and engagement.

The idea for Oculid came from the founders Antje Venjakob, Stefan Ruff, and Klaas Filler with their personal experiences with eye tracking research in the university. Dr. Antje Venjakob, co-founder and co-CEO of Oculid, told they could not find eye tracking solutions in the market that was both affordable and simple to use.

“The challenge is even bigger when we talk about research on mobile phones since laboratories usually offer either eye trackers or webcams, which does not translate exactly the behavior the participant would have when using a smartphone in their natural environment”, Venjakob said. The need for market research and UX research on mobile has increased significantly as an average person spends around 3 hours and 15 minutes on their phones, while millennials are on their devices 5.7 hours per day. With eye tracking research on smartphones, companies can understand customers’ behavior to create more engaging and compelling advertising, customer experience, and packaging.

The iOS release marks a stepstone for Oculid, as the startup’s mission is to make eye tracking a methodology accessible for researchers and companies of all sizes and budgets. “Our proprietary technology has been proved to be as accurate as traditional eye trackers, which allows eye tracking research to be considerably more affordable than it used to be. With the iOS release, we are allowing eye tracking research to be done basically in any smartphone with a selfie camera”, explains Dr. Antje Venjakob, co-founder and co-CEO of Oculid. The app was tested on more than 220 Android devices worldwide and now can be used on iPhones as well.

Click here to download the iOS app