SYSTEM 1 – HOW WE SHOP
Here are just some of the projects we’ve have used eye tracking, click paths and facial coding techniques on to uncover System 1:
- Diageo – eye tracking in off and on license trade, for craft beers
- Beiersdorf – eye tracking in pharmacy
- Barbie – eye tracking printed, digital and video advertising
- Girls Toys – eye tracking in store
- Entertainment One – Facial Expression Coding for Ricky Zoom cartoon series
- Nursery shoppers – eye tracking in store at BRU
- Playmonster – digital click pathways, scroll depth
- Spotify – UX digital click pathways
- Ravensburger – digital click pathways
System 1 is like an invisible engine. We don’t need to know or compute every moving part of a car to be able to drive it, navigate our road system, find our way from A to B. Similarly, our System 1 is designed to help us to operate in life with minimum “slow thinking”, reducing the need to compute each moving part of our decisions.
Our brain wants us to operate in this way, thinking fast, acting on intuition, on primed actions, most of which stem from our earlier sensorimotor life learning experiences, or the biases we’ve learned along the way. Because System 1 works at a subconscious level, we rarely describe its role in our decision making, preferring to reflect on the reasons we make choices based on the assumption that conscious thought- System 2 – is what drives us.
When we conduct research, interviewing consumers and shoppers, we need to look beyond what they say they do, and examine what they actually do, observe and listen out for biases and heuristics, in non verbal cues.
Whilst it’s possible for a skilled interviewer to ask, probe and observe consumers in a manner which surfaces System 1 behaviour, by far one of the best ways to understand System 1 behaviour is to research using tools such as eye tracking, facial expression coding, or digital click-path-and-dwell heat maps.
Traditionally research agencies have shied away from using eye tracking in research. In the early days the technology was unwieldy and expensive.
Here at Consumer Fluent we have found ways to be much more agile and use it cost effectively to cover more diverse projects. Once a researcher has the skills, it is worth considering eye tracking as a tool for diverse scenarios.
Facial expression coding with AI can also be done in conjunction with eye tracking for even richer insights.
I have conducted both eye tracking and AI facial expression coding at a qualitative, small intense volume and quantitatively, including with kids as young as 4!