Shared Visual Attention in Collaborative Programming: A Descriptive Analysis

This paper reports on the initial results of an eye-tracking research of collaborative program development, more particularly, in the case of pair programming. An eight-weeks long empirical study was conducted in industrial-like settings. The study focuses on investigating the interplay between pair-programming productivity and recorded developers' eye movements. We also evaluate a previously developed collaborative eye-tracking framework, which is capable of tracking two participants simultaneously, and we discuss the issues related to it. We present a descriptive analysis of shared visual attention during pair programming by combining data from eye-tracking and verbal protocols, and propose new eye tracking metrics. Finally, we outline the implications of the findings.