Bridging Assessment and Planning Intervention: An Eye-Tracking-Enabled Decision Support Framework for Enhancing Streetscape Visual Esthetic Quality

Although urban streetscape visual esthetic quality (VAQ) assessment has progressed markedly, its findings are rarely operationalized in urban planning policy-making. The resulting discontinuity in the assessment–policy linkage is a critical impediment to streetscape VAQ enhancement. We propose an eye-tracking-enabled, end-to-end decision support framework that links evidence acquisition, intervention prioritization, design strategy formulation, and outcome feedback. Eye tracking is integrated to establish a three-dimensional assessment system spanning spatial, psychological, and physiological dimensions. Within this integrated system, we construct a three-level eye-tracking-based visual characteristics (ET-VC) framework across streetscape elements, formal characteristics, and public esthetic perception (PAP). Together, the three-dimensional system provides a theoretical basis for acquiring the multi-modal data required for VAQ enhancement. Building on this integrated assessment, we embed scenario planning theory to construct a planning facing decision model with PAP as the core outcome. The model combines importance-performance analysis (IPA) with the coupling coordination degree model (CCDM) to guide resource allocation decisions and intervention prioritization, and further uses eye-tracking evidence to support the development of refined, actionable enhancement strategies. A case study in Wudadao validates the framework’s robustness and feasibility. The ET-VC results provide additional evidence for interpreting esthetic perception: (1) ET-VC indicators differ significantly across streetscape elements, and “being viewed more” does not necessarily correspond to higher esthetic ratings; (2) four groups of key formal characteristic indicators—color configuration, naturalness, historicity and planning/regulatory control, and visual scale—systematically reshape fixation onset and maintenance patterns; and (3) PAP appears to involve partially nonlinear relationships between material landscape features and additional top-down influences (e.g., historical narratives and individual experience), rather than being fully explained by linear associations alone. Overall, this study provides both a theoretical basis and an applied demonstration for evidence-based streetscape VAQ enhancement.