Posted by Raphael on Nov 19, 2009 in Marketing | 2 comments

A couple of my colleagues sent this link around lately. It’s a WIRED article that’s a couple years old already about Eye-Tracking Billboards. Try as I might I can’t find any more recent articles about this technology so I don’t know if it was an idea that just phased out of if there have been any test trials of this yet.

But I found it interesting. As a consumer, my initial gut reaction was to reel back from this a bit. It feels a little “ooogey”…a bit like they’re invading my privacy. Everywhere and everything we do these days from surfing the web, flipping channels on our TV, or recording shows on our TiVo is being recorded and analyzed by someone out there. Just having another thing monitor our activity out there feels viscerally wrong somehow. If I walk up to a billboard or poster and my eyes fixate on a woman’s boobs, it’s a little embarrassing having anyone know that.

Yet…as a graphic designer, I can’t help but feel technology like this is HUGE. I spend my career trying to help my clients guess (educated guess, but a guess nonetheless) about what their customers want to see and what makes them react. Armed with information that might tell me XXXX many people react to certain types of design and imagery, can greatly help me achieve the goals my clients want.

Besides, I don’t really care that company YYYY knows I looked at a boobie provided it’s an anonymous collection of data from every passerby rather than having data that’s specifically tied in with my personal information. I think that’s a huge distinction. In fact, it might help designers design more things that I like to see.  More boobies for everyone!