

Move beyond behavioral targeting: using mouse movements to read visitor’s mind - sushi
http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/split-testing-blog/behavioral-targeting-using-mouse-movements/

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andy_boot
Surely the raininess factor is an April fools at least?

The happyness factor from mouse movements? Well I'm unsure but I can see how
someone could argue that could be calculated. But raininess? Please no.

~~~
paraschopra
It is not about whether it will rain or not. It is about whether a user thinks
it will rain or not. Surely it can be predicted, isn't it?

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rgrieselhuber
I remember GazeHawk had done some research about this, I'd love to hear their
thoughts.

~~~
bkrausz
I was preparing my "this is bullshit" face, which involves aggressively
linking to our rebuttal ( <http://www.gazehawk.com/blog/eye-tracking-vs-mouse-
tracking/> )

Then I looked at the calendar. Well played Paras!

~~~
whathappenedto
In the non-calendar related world, some of the cutting edge research on using
cursor movements is done by the University of Washington and Microsoft
Research: <http://jeffhuang.com/Final_CursorBehavior_CHI11.pdf>

The article shows how movements and hesitations can be used to figure out
which links are relevant to you. I believe this is the largest scale study to
date (38 subjects on eye-tracking + cursor-tracking, thousands of subjects on
cursor-tracking only).

Also, this article from Emory University:
[http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.169...](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.169.5079&rep=rep1&type=pdf)
uses cursor movements to figure out if a user is browsing/researching a
product or ready to buy.

~~~
bkrausz
It's funny because that paper and our blog post cite the same Google paper.
There's some level of interpretation of data, but some of his cited papers
offer strong evidence contrary to his point.

From the Jeff Huang paper:

    
    
       The mean Euclidean distance between cursor and gaze is 178px 
       (σ = 139px) and the median is 143px.
    

The problem here is that there's a long tail of completely inaccurate data:
the average distance between eye and mouse is 178px. I believe there are some
people who tend to follow their eyes with their mouse, and some people who
don't. Google research suggests the ratio is about 1:2.

That being said, I am a bit off topic here: there is most definitely value
that can be extracted from mouse position. Can it be used to tell where the
user is looking? Unlikely in the common case. Can it indicate purchase intent?
I wouldn't be surprised.

My rebuttal was mostly premeditated by the amount of false interpretation of
research about mouse-eye correlation. There's a lot of really good research
out there, but it's often mis-cited to support an opposing claim.

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ankneo
Looks cool :) looking forward to use it !!

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lwhi
There are mathematics symbols, it looks scientific. Must be true :)

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dancunningham
One step further... using body movements...

<http://mail.google.com/mail/help/motion.html>

"Create a flowchart with ease" :-)

But is the undertone a suggestion that Kinect just isn't going to make it out
of the world of gaming?

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pkaura
This is kool.

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shadowpwner
The ten test subjects is hardly a representative sample.

~~~
paraschopra
Don't forget all of them are from 4Chan. It is as representative as it can
get.

~~~
shadowpwner
Wow, I missed that completely. Tags: april fool joke, behavioral targeting,
joke, lol, sophisticated

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amnigos
Mouse tracking only solves 20% of the problem.

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combiclickwise
almost fell for it.. well done

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Silhouette
Can it also tell whether I am thinking of pink ponies while viewing your site,
so that an appropriate visual style and colour scheme can be presented? I
think that would be a valuable addition to an exemplary toolbox for
professional web developers.

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antihero
Is that an MCP neuron??

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ankneo
hey one question though.. is it related to the day?? :D

~~~
paraschopra
Which day are you talking about ;)

~~~
meadhikari
April 1st

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logjam
Read my mind. Also stole some of the change I had laying beside my laptop.
Impressive.

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matthewslotkin
I heard Color was using this technology to determine whether people were
angry, disappointed, or just waiting for something interesting to happen when
using their app.

~~~
jdp23
Actually Color used an early version of this technology to determine how VCs
would react to their pitch and tuned it appropriately. This really helps
explain both the amount they raised and the confusing quote from Sequoia that
"we haven't seen anything this rainy since Google!"

