Earlier this year, I wrote on thinking strategically then filling in the boxes.  Successful innovations start this way.

Mark McGuinness reminded me of this as I played one of his his mind games for thinking inside the box tonight here on my holiday in NZ.

He uses creative constraints like time,  money and understanding market realities to generate better and faster innovations.  But he reminds us to forget about the restrictions of red tape and any fears you may have. Most of all he points out that understanding your customers and what they do is key! Erm… I agree!

I always remember when I was in a meeting with a big bank and the creatives were being drilled on the benefits of accessibility with the website they had just built. I heard cries of "you’re stemming our creativity" and "that’s so boring" but if they had been given their creative constraints up front, or better still, created them themselves, then there would have been no argument.

If you don’t have an observer during a lab-based Tobii eye tracking usability test, you may be missing client impressions and insights from the participant you’re testing!

I was recently doing some eye tracking with a global banking client. The client project managers and designers were in the observation room watching the person’s eye gaze data live on the screen as the participant was doing some usability testing. It was amazing to realise that they were actually learning things that the usability interviewer was not.

The clients could see a trace of the participants eye gaze in real time. Therefore, they found the usability VERY interesting and it was blatantly obvious when a participant got confused or looked at things that were superfluous to the task at hand! The exactly way a participant’s eye move on the screen may not be completely apparent to the facilitator.

The clients added a whole heap of value to the process, and helped me to clarify my recommendations, and also make sure that I didn’t miss anything they thought was important to report on!

Because the clients are getting all these great insights, a debrief after the session is imperative!

If you don’t have an observers, or time for a debrief how can you fix this?

Use a third computer to show the participant’s gaze data live to the facilitator!

To do this you need to connect all three computers through a LAN and enable Remote Live Viewing on your eye tracker. Angle the facilitator’s screen away from the participant and your ready to go!

Just started OZCHI 08 in Cairns.  We are staying at Palm Cove and it is very very very hot and humid!

130 people and many from overseas! Bas and I are exhibiting the Tobii eye trackers. Looks like we might be able to eye track an interactive game with location based mobile photos, that way we can see which ones people like the most.

Here’s a taste of the view out the front of our hotel!

I just read this inspiring interview by Tim Baker, of Surfing Life fame, with award winning author Tim Winton. 

There’s times I go out at Long Reef, across the road from my place, after a busy work day and for ages can’t seem to catch any waves that are worth writing home about.  Mainly, this is because I don’t let go. Let go of the day, the past, tomorrow or what other people think. I don’t live in the moment. 

Then, I’ll catch a screamer, and everything changes, I spend the rest of my surf totally ripping, totally absorbed. 

Tim, the writer, describes this perfectly,

[Surfing is] a way of slowing down and processing stuff without consciously addressing it. A lot of the time we’re forced to live in the future or the past. Surfing is something that keeps you in the present tense. Some of that is just the immediacy of the problems it sets you, physical adjustments you make every half second to stay on your feet or avoid physical injury (or discomfort, at least). Some of it is just the energy required that dulls much of your other problems.

I don’t meditate much anymore, but I surf. Once again, Tim captures this,

For me surfing is about beauty and connectedness. Riding a wave to shore is a lovely, meditative thing to be able to do. You’re walking on water, tapping the sea’s energy without extracting anything from it. You’re meeting the sea, not ripping anything out of it.

And I’m being environmentally friendly at the same time,

Few other water pursuits have this non-exploitative element. As a boater, fisherman, shell-collector or whatever, I’m always taking something away from the sea, having an impact on it… But as a surfer I’m riding energy that the sea is expending of its own accord, the way a dolphin or seal or sea-lion does. The actual physical sensation of sliding down a wall of water, feeling really awake and alive and in the moment, is hard to describe to the non-surfer. It looks beautiful and it feels beautiful. Knowing that you’re not doing any damage just makes the feeling better. For some men in particular, whose lives require a kind of utilitarian mindset that can be pretty unfulfilling, this is one of the few activities they undertake in which they can do something pointlessly beautiful. There’s no material result, nothing they can show themselves or the boss. There’s just a bit of a rush, an elevated heart rate, a buzz that lasts all the rest of the day.

I am most certainly taking a copy of ‘Breath‘ on holiday with me!