People in western countries spend approximately 90% of their time indoors. This severely affects their health (WHO 2013; Klepeis et al. 2001). The health risks are exacerbated if people travel between indoor spaces by car or public transport. Buildings on streets specifically designed to create a human scale and connected with the street-space can potentially invite people to walk and enhance their engagement with their surroundings (O’Mara 2019; Ewing et al. 2013). Since the 1960s, influential empirical studies have raised awareness of the walkability of streets (e.g. Jacobs 2008) but reliable evidence on the effectiveness of applied design solutions remains scarce (Spanjar & Suurenbroek 2020). This eye-tracking study focused on the visual ‘scanning’ of streetscapes and people’s appreciation of applied design principles. The aim was to gather together lessons learned from a variety of streetscapes in cities around the world and use them to inform the design of new developments in the Netherlands. Google Street View was used to select 19 images of streets in high-density environments with human-scale attributes in their façades and street-spaces. They were presented in a randomized order in a laboratory setting to 40 participants, who viewed them for 5 seconds. The participants’ visual explorative behaviour was recorded with advanced eye-tracking technology. A survey recorded their overall appreciation of the scenes and mouse-tracking collated their specific areas of interest (see fig. 1). The comparative analysis of the participants’ aggregated eye-fixation images together with the supplementary methods suggests that certain attributes for creating a human scale catch the eye in the first few seconds and are highly appreciated. These include the variety of a street’s façades, a street’s enclosedness, and the level of detail in the transition zone between the private ground floor and the public street (see fig. 2). Green features are particularly valued and might have important restorative qualities for people who spend most of their time indoors (Kaplan 1995; Ulrich 1984). Future research should focus on the design of façades and the street-space itself, taking people’s indoor lives and related stress levels as a starting point.
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People in western countries spend approximately 90% of their time indoors. This severely affects their health (WHO 2013; Klepeis et al. 2001). The health risks are exacerbated if people travel between indoor spaces by car or public transport. Buildings on streets specifically designed to create a human scale and connected with the street-space can potentially invite people to walk and enhance their engagement with their surroundings (O’Mara 2019; Ewing et al. 2013). Since the 1960s, influential empirical studies have raised awareness of the walkability of streets (e.g. Jacobs 2008) but reliable evidence on the effectiveness of applied design solutions remains scarce (Spanjar & Suurenbroek 2020). This eye-tracking study focused on the visual ‘scanning’ of streetscapes and people’s appreciation of applied design principles. The aim was to gather together lessons learned from a variety of streetscapes in cities around the world and use them to inform the design of new developments in the Netherlands. Google Street View was used to select 19 images of streets in high-density environments with human-scale attributes in their façades and street-spaces. They were presented in a randomized order in a laboratory setting to 40 participants, who viewed them for 5 seconds. The participants’ visual explorative behaviour was recorded with advanced eye-tracking technology. A survey recorded their overall appreciation of the scenes and mouse-tracking collated their specific areas of interest (see fig. 1). The comparative analysis of the participants’ aggregated eye-fixation images together with the supplementary methods suggests that certain attributes for creating a human scale catch the eye in the first few seconds and are highly appreciated. These include the variety of a street’s façades, a street’s enclosedness, and the level of detail in the transition zone between the private ground floor and the public street (see fig. 2). Green features are particularly valued and might have important restorative qualities for people who spend most of their time indoors (Kaplan 1995; Ulrich 1984). Future research should focus on the design of façades and the street-space itself, taking people’s indoor lives and related stress levels as a starting point.
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In this study, we examined the effects of a defender contesting jump shots on performance and gaze behaviors of basketball players taking jump shots. Thirteen skilled youth basketball players performed 48 shots from about 5 m from the basket; 24 uncontested and 24 contested. The participants wore mobile eye tracking glasses to measure their gaze behavior. As expected, an approaching defender trying to contest the shot led to significant changes in movement execution and gaze behavior including shorter shot execution time, longer jump time, longer ball flight time, later final fixation onset, and longer fixation on the defender. Overall, no effects were found for shooting accuracy. However, the effects on shot accuracy were not similar for all participants: six participants showed worse performance and six participants showed better performance in the contested compared to the uncontested condition. These changes in performance were accompanied by differences in gaze behavior. The participants with worse performance showed shorter absolute and relative final fixation duration and a tendency for an earlier final fixation offset in the contested condition compared to the uncontested condition, whereas gaze behavior of the participants with better performance for contested shots was relatively unaffected. The results confirm that a defender contesting the shot is a relevant constraint for basketball shooting suggesting that representative training designs should also include contested shots, and more generally other constraints that are representative of the actual performance setting such as time or mental pressure.
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