There has been a lot of discussion over the past few years about the value of Eyetracking. For those unfamiliar with the theory behind this technology, UXmatters author Jim Ross provides an overview of the process:

Eyetracking detects where a person’s fovea fixate and the movements in between fixations. The fovea is a small spot on the retina that is responsible for our fine, detailed vision. Outside the fovea, visual acuity decreases greatly. Our eyes constantly move in rapid bursts called saccades, with brief stops called fixations, during which we take in visual information through our fovea. We use our parafovea—the area just outside the fovea—and peripheral vision to determine where to fixate next.

Several thought leaders in the field of User Experience (UX) have shared findings and methodologies about Eyetracking in the past few years.

Most recently Kara Pernice and Jakob Nielsen shared their experiences and recommendations in the white paper, Eyetracking Methodology.

Luke Wroblewski, Senior Director of Product Design at Yahoo! and author of Rosenfeld Media’s Web Form Design – Filling the Blanks makes several references to the value Eyetracking and Heat Maps in creating more useful online forms.

However there have been a couple of key issues facing organizations wanting to incorporate Eyetracking as part of their User Experience process. The first being the technology itself, and the second being financial.

As Robert Stevens from Think Eyetracking noted in a recent blog post, the technology in and of itself can be a distraction to those engaging in Eyetracking sessions:

…users are often enamoured by the eye tracking technology and the results it produces. This takes the focus away from the user’s experience of the website and focuses it on the eye tracking technology.

The other issue is the sheer cost of both purchasing the technology and running the sessions. Testing even a small group of users can cost thousands of dollars, which in the current global economy, is simply unrealistic for most organizations. (Unless of course you have a budget like Google who use Eyetracking extensively.)

Dr. Tal Schwartz and his team at ClickTale Web Analytics have created an ingenious solution that resolves these barriers, providing greater insight and context into visitor behavior:

Independent research shows that there is an 84% to 88% correlation between mouse and eye movements*, allowing us to create high-precision heatmaps based on just the users’ mouse movements. In addition, our heatmaps don’t require the subjects to wear a special headset or use special equipment. Indeed, most visitors aren’t even aware they’re being recorded, allowing for a completely transparent and anonymous usability testing process.

It is this kind of innovation and creative thinking that makes ClickTale, in my professional opinion, the best web analytics solution on the market today.

Many web analytic tools overwhelm people with statistics that at best provide glimpses into possible changes, or at worst, steer organizations in the wrong direction based on assumptions of what the raw data actually means.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, this solution could well be worth thousands of dollars to organizations, regardless of company size and/or budget.

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Transcript for this Podcast

I had the pleasure of talking with Brad Nunnally about the importance of failure to innovate; moving teams and individuals to new ideas and future successes.

I first met Brad at this year’s IDEA conference in Toronto. You can read his brilliant overview of the two day event over on Johnny Holland.

Part of the inspiration for his three part article on failure came from this video by Scott Berkun.

In Part One Brad discusses the importance of Retrospectives and Documenting Warning Signs to learn from past mistakes.

In Part Two he covers the opposing yet equally important issues of Assigning Blame and Highlighting the Success of others.

In Part Three Brad discusses why it’s so important to Embrace Failure and to also keep an Open Mind realizing that everyone makes mistakes.

In our conversation, Brad and I note quotes from other UX professionals around the world. Their feedback can be found on the Wiki I created for this podcast.

Many thanks to Eric Reiss, Jan Jursa, and Valeska O’Leary for sharing their insights on the Wiki and to Daniel Szuc and Christian Crumlish who dropped me an email with their thoughts.

I’d like to encourage others within and outside of the UX industries to build on the questions provided on the Wiki.

I think you’ll find those who have garnered the most success in their industry are the ones who have failed more often than not. They are the ones who have had the courage to keep pursuing ideas, evolving them over time to learn from mistakes and create an even greater product or service than originally imagined.

At events like the IA Summit and the Interaction Design conference, I think we should be discussing the topic of failure and not just with / amongst presenters but as a common conversational thread with all attendees.

As a suggestion I believe conference organizers should provide a space where people can write, sketch, and share past failures and lessons learned. I saw this idea when I attended the first annual VizThink conference.

In addition to most workshops providing attendees the opportunity to share via sketching (see image below), large whiteboards were set up in the pre-conference area allowing others to draw out ideas which, in turn, encouraged discussion amongst participants about the illustrations.

Most recently, at the first annual UX Australia conference, Oliver Weidlich discussed several examples of interface failure.

To hear his 10 minute talk about this presentation make your way over to the UX Australia Media page. You can also subscribe to all the shows through their iTunes subscription.

The User Experience (UX) book club was an initiative started by Steve Baty, Principal at Meld Consulting in Sydney Australia.

As Steve pointed out in a recent article on Boxes and Arrows the value in the book club is the opportunity to share experiences through face-to-face interactions with other UX professionals and enthusiasts:

UX Book Club is a fairly simple idea: get a group of people together, choose a book, and agree on meeting details. Go away and read the book. On the date set, come together and discuss the book. Talk about how you might use what you’ve read in your work; how your experiences run counter to the book; an example of how the book is spot on. Have a bloody good argument about it, then go have a drink and talk about it some more.

I started the Ottawa chapter of the UX Book Club a few weeks back and I hope this will provide an opportunity to share experiences and ideas with other professionals and organizations.

I brought about a dozen books to the initial meeting for others to review. The group decided on The Back of the Napkin by Dan Roam . Coincidentally, Mr. Roam was recently announced as the keynote speaker for the 2010 Information Architecture Summit in Phoenix, Arizona.

Our next meeting will be at the umi cafe at 6:00pm on Thursday, November 26th to discuss The Back of the Napkin. Whether you’re a veteran of the field or simply interested in learning more, I hope that you’ll join us!

Please sign up on the Wiki and follow us on Twitter @uxbookottawa.