Category Archives: Fun

Gamification of Market Research

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In a The Emperor’s New Sneakers I noted that sampling bias and Subject Expectancy effect causes erroneous results in online panel research. There is another problem with traditional question-based market research, Rory Sutherland, the Chairman of Ogilvy, summed it up nicely in an interview June 2011:

“The conscious, rational brain isn’t the Oval Office. It isn’t there making executive decisions in our minds. It is actually the press office, issuing explanations for actions we’ve already taken.” Continue reading →

Make sure you do good audience research: observe don’t ask

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One of the things we’ve learned about research at Think Eye Tracking is that people don’t always tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. This article explains why that can happen and how eye tracking can be used to peer into peoples subconscious thought processes.

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Think Eye Tracking recently showed the above picture to thirty men and thirty women for five seconds while they were being eye tracked. They did not know what they were going to see, we surprised them! Continue reading →

Completing the Circle: Incorporating Evaluation Methods in Creative Work

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On Monday 19th January, we attended the symposium for the role of evaluation and technology in creative practice at the British Computer Society in London.  The symposium brought together scientists, artists, designers, developers and academics alike.

Papers discussed at the event included work on the preservation of new media, using sensual instruments as evaluation, the perception of immersive-telematic artwork, how the relationship between artist, exhibition and public is altered by digital interaction, evaluating cause and effect in user experience, and finally some innovative uses of eye tracking technology.


Vision & Reality: Relativity in Art
Robin Hawes MA (University College Falmouth) made an interesting case for using eye tracking technology with a series of photographic images in an art/science based project. By examining the processes undertaken by the eye in providing sensory data to the brain, the project aimed to reveal the disparity between the visual information gathered by our eyes and the conscious picture of ‘reality’ formed in our minds.

https://www.rane-research.org


Are you seeing what I’m seeing? An eye-tracking evaluation of dynamic scenes
Another interesting paper was presented by Richard Stevens and Tony Renshaw from Leeds Metropolitan University.  They described how as part of a repertoire of tools, the visualisation and quantitative evaluation of eye movement data can provide an intuitive and accessible approach to the evaluation of moving image based media (in this case, Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo) and allow the conventions, assumptions, and intuitive practices of film-making to be examined.

https://www.leedsmet.ac.uk/inn/research.htm

Stephen Boyd Davis, chair of the event, explains:
‘Interactive digital technologies offer an increasing range of opportunities for artists, designers and other creative workers to find out how their work is experienced. Some creative people are keen to embrace these opportunities, while others consider such methods an intrusion. We aim to share ideas and expertise and tackle some hard questions.’

The symposium provided an interesting insight into how eyetracking and other innovative technology can be used to evaluate the user or audience’s response to media, whether it be art, design, or science.