Archive for the ‘Research Thoughts’ Category
INTRODUCTION
In just over 10 years mobile gaming has gone from Snake II on a Nokia 3310 to a multi-billion dollar industry for mobile phones and tablets.
More people than ever are playing mobile games thanks to the rise of cultural phenomena like Angry Birds which, at over 20 million downloads, became the best-selling app of all time.
But what makes a handset or tablet-based game great? What problems can hinder the experience? Usability experts SimpleUsability look at the top ten features in mobile games.
This article is also avalable as a PDF for download: Moble Gaming Usability Study 2012.pdf
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Mouse eye tracking seems to be a popular topic on the internet with analytics people – regularly promoted as a cheaper alternative to real eye tracking by a range of companies. It’s interesting to note that these companies don’t have eye tracking equipment, so we’re always amused at how you could make such a claim that, when you really think about how you use the web, shouldn’t work.
We’ve been running eye tracking studies for over 5 years now and can honestly say, from a user experience research perspective, there is no useful correlation between eye movements and mouse movements – apart from the obvious looking at where you are about to click.
If there was a correlation, we could immediately stop spending money on eye tracking equipment and just use our mouse tracking data from websites and usability sessions. We’re all for saving time and money in research where possible.
Does mouse eye tracking actually work?
In word – NO. We have many ways of illustrating why mouse tracking fails to show us where people have looked, but here’s our favourite three.
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Taking the element of luck from the research procedure.
The Truth, when a marketer tells you that’s what they’ve found you’d better run. Marketing is looking for “Target Audiences” unfortunately marketers have forgotten that these “Target Audiences” are actually people. The problem they have, is they find it hard to connect with real people, because they don’t ever see any, all they see is “Target Audiences”.
When they set out to run focus groups, build personas, embark on any testing, they’ve already accepted the futility of it all, they know that the truth is hidden to them, so they’re just going through the motions. They know that the majority of decision-making is from the subconscious and they have no way of getting to it.
With eye tracking technology you can find out not what people say they saw, but reveal what they really did see. We do this not by analysing “heat maps” but driving out insights through retrospective recall sessions with users. The evidence is compelling; it allows users to express the familiar, describe the journey, and reveal the subconscious decision-making taking place whilst exploring your offerings.