Have you ever been in a retail store such as Target, Best Buy, or even a grocery store like Publix and a product on the shelves caught your attention? It could have been due to the packaging, price, or maybe the type of promotion being ran. This is marketing at work and could be the result of testing eye tracking on mock consumers.
The marketing profession has arguably the biggest push towards developing new technology, aside from engineering and other science-based research fields. Using new technology they can discover current trends and track consumer behaviors. Firms cut no corners when it comes to discovering new markets or target customers in order to get ahead of their competition. Although the concept of following where the human eye wonders is no new idea, the technology to do so has advanced into new territory over the past decade.
- Screen Eye Tracking – Whether it be a software that tracks webcams or headsets the consumer can wear in a research setting or focus group, there are multiple ways a company can do research and development on what catches the customers eye. Once testing is done, users can view a heat map to show points or areas of heavy eye traffic. Can be adjusted for slack with certain audiences. For example, younger audiences whose eyes might wander more than other target audiences.
- Click Tracking – Another great way for a company to track consumer behavior while on a computer or other device with a cursor. A firm can use this to conduct research for online shopping across other sites as well as their own. It is a great way to see what customers are drawn to on your website or maybe you notice less people are scrolling down to see the rest of the page and they want to make some adjustments to see if it would benefit them. However, there are some faults to this method compared to eye tracking, such as some people who don’t use a cursor to read through a web page.
- Designing Web Pages – The main point of these research methods is to hopefully take the data and use it to improve ads, calls to action, and directors to other parts of a website. Consumer retention is an important statistic to keep track of in order to produce sales.
Hello Matthew, great information on how important eye tracking is to the success of web design. Personally, I found the image to be intense, but in a good way, the image makes me want to read into the blog and figure out what it is about. The information provided on eye tracking and how heat maps can show where the eyes tend to look more on a website is great. I also agree with your point that the whole point of all of these research data sets is to eventually create a call to action and improve website designs.
This blog had good information about eye tracking. The name of the blog was clever and a good insight as to what the blog content was.
Great read! It was really informative and the featured image really captures one’s attention into wanting to read more! Good job, Matt!