UXC

Client application of the UXI Group Studies infrastructure.

UXC is an application for conducting user studies with eye tracking for Microsoft Windows. UXC client and UXR web management applications form the UXI Group Studies infrastructure for conducting group eye tracking studies. This project is developed at User eXperience and Interaction Research Center of Faculty of Informatics and Information Technologies, Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava.

For more information about the infrastructure, group studies and our lab, see the Publications section below.

See project Wiki for documentation, examples and guides.

Main features

• Recording user studies with eye tracking
• Stimuli timeline and playback
• Connection with the UXR management application for:
  • Remote setup and control of the session recording,
  • Upload recording data on session finish.
• Integration options for 3rd party applications used in the experiment, e.g., a web or desktop application through locally hosted REST API and web sockets, providing them with:
  • Real-time access to eye tracking and other session recording data
  • Session recording control, i.e., to start/stop recording, query status, or control stimuli timeline playback
  • Writing custom events

Session recording options

Session recording can be started and controlled in 3 ways:

• Remotely, by the study conductor through the UXR management application,
• Locally, using the application user interface, or
• Through the REST API or web socket with SignalR by a 3rd party application.

Supported devices

UXC can record data from these devices during the study:

• Tobii Pro eye trackers - using the Tobii Pro SDK - Tobii X2-60 and TX300 were tested,
• Webcam video and audio recording - using the FFmpeg binary,
• Screencast video recording - using the UScreenCapture utility and the FFmpeg binary,
• Keyboard and mouse events logging - using the Windows API hooks,
• External events logging - using the locally hosted REST API and websockets with ASP.NET SignalR.

Stimuli timeline

These types of stimuli are provided for playback during the session recording:

• Eye tracker calibration with customizable calibration plans
• Eye tracker validation
• Instructions
• Questionary with write or choose answer questions
• Show image
• Show desktop
• Launch program
• Introduction into experiment

Build and setup

UXC is a GUI application for Microsoft Windows written in C# v6.0 and .NET v4.5.2. To build the UXC and other projects in this repository, follow these steps:

• Install Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 or 2017, or Visual Studio Build Tools.
• To build the solution using the Visual Studio user interface:
  • Open the UXC Solution.sln file.
  • Set up build target to Release.
  • Build the solution (default hotkey F6).
• To build the solution using the command line:
  • Download NuGet Windows Commandline, v4.9.x were tested.
  • Create new environment variable with name nuget and its path set to the nuget.exe executable, e.g., C:\Program Files (x86)\NuGet\nuget.exe.
  • Test the path in a new command line window with echo %nuget%.
  • Run the build.bat script.
• Locate build output of the UXC in the /src/apps/UXC/build/Release/ directory.

Before running the UXC application, follow these steps to set it up:

• Enable opening port 55555 on the firewall, see the Firewall Setup page in the Wiki.
• For screencast recording, download and install the x86 version of the UScreenCapture.
• Configure webcam video and audio devices in the UXC.Devices.Streamers.ini configuration file.
• Configure UXR endpoint in the UXC.Plugins.UXR.ini configuration file.

Then launch the UXC.exe executable.

Repository contents

Source code folder src structure:

• docs - documentation files, images, sample session definitions
• src - source code of the UXC application and its components:
  • apps - the main UXC app project
  • core - core libraries of the application
  • devices - libraries implementing communication with recording devices
  • plugins - optional plugins for the application
• test - source code of testing projects

NuGet packages

The following libraries from this repository are available as NuGet packages:

Library	Package
UXC.Core.Data
UXC.Core.Data.Compatibility.GazeToolkit
UXC.Core.Data.Serialization
UXC.Core.Interfaces

These NuGet packages are available in the public Azure DevOps artifacts repository for all UXIsk packages:

https://pkgs.dev.azure.com/uxifiit/Packages/_packaging/Public/nuget/v3/index.json

Add UXIsk Packages to package sources

First, add a new package source. Choose the way that fits you the best:

• Add new package source in Visual Studio settings.
• Add new package source from command line:

nuget source Add -Name "UXIsk Packages" -Source "https://pkgs.dev.azure.com/uxifiit/Packages/_packaging/Public/nuget/v3/index.json"

• Create or edit NuGet.config file in your project's solution directory where you specify this package source:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
  <packageSources>
    <add key="UXIsk Packages" value="https://pkgs.dev.azure.com/uxifiit/Packages/_packaging/Public/nuget/v3/index.json" />
    <!-- other package sources -->
  </packageSources>
  <disabledPackageSources />
</configuration>

Install packages

Use the Visual Studio "Manage NuGet Packages..." window or use the Package Manager Console:

PM> Install-Package UXC.Core.Data

PM> Install-Package UXC.Core.Data.Compatibility.GazeToolkit

PM> Install-Package UXC.Core.Data.Serialization

PM> Install-Package UXC.Core.Interfaces

Contributing

Use Issues to request features, report bugs, or discuss ideas.

Dependencies

• UXI.Libs
• UXI.GazeToolkit
• Tobii.Research
• Rx.NET
• Json.NET
• Ninject
• ASP.NET SignalR
• AutoMapper
• Stateless
• CommandLineParser
• and others

Copyright

Copyright (c) 2018 The UXC Authors.

See the AUTHORS.txt file for a complete list of The UXC Authors.

License

UXC is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 3 only as published by the Free Software Foundation - see the COPYING.txt file for details.

This repository contains additional separate projects that are components of the UXC application. All projects in this repository are licensed under the same terms of the GNU GPL v3 only unless an explicit license is located in the project's directory. License located in the project's directory takes precedence over the license of the whole repository.

Following are the projects explicitly licensed under the terms of the GNU LGPL v3 only:

• src/core/
  • UXC.Core.Interfaces
  • UXC.Core.Data
  • UXC.Core.Data.Compatibility.GazeToolkit
  • UXC.Core.Data.Serialization

Contacts

• UXIsk
  • User eXperience and Interaction Research Center, Faculty of Informatics and Information Technologies, Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava
  • Web: https://www.uxi.sk/
• Martin Konôpka
  • E-mail: martin (underscore) konopka (at) stuba (dot) sk

Publications

Bielikova, M., Konopka, M., Simko, J., Moro, R., Tvarozek, J., Hlavac, P., Kuric, E. (2018). Eye-tracking en masse: Group user studies, lab infrastructure, and practices. Journal of Eye Movement Research, 11(3), Article No. 6. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.16910/jemr.11.3.6