TEMPE, USA: What are your customers looking at? That is exactly the question Sensory Track, a new innovative consumer research company, will answer for you, down to the pixel. Sensory Track is currently using state-of-the-art eye tracking equipment, which captures customers' eye movements as they interact with their clients' websites, advertisements, and on-the-shelf products.

This technology coupled with tightly-controlled experimental designs enables them to tell clients exactly what their customers attend to when they interact with these materials. Sensory Track was founded last year by internationally distinguished cognitive scientist, Dr. Bob Atkinson from Arizona State University, and award-winning advertising agency owner, Doug Lyon of Austin, Texas.

The two colleagues conceived of the idea after lengthy conversations focusing on how to use state-of-the-art technology to help companies track consumer behavior more closely. "Every marketer knows that attracting people's attention, creating awareness, is the number one goal," stated Lyon. "Well, we can test exactly that. Did they literally create awareness? Did the consumer look at that ad? Did they look at that product on the shelf? What are they looking at?"

US Airways is one of Sensory Track's launch customers, using Sensory Track's innovative research to design its next generation-customer web site. "There are a lot of opinions about what makes a web site user-friendly for the customer, but Sensory Track's research shows us, in quantifiable terms, exactly what our customers are looking for when they sign on to usairways.com," said Kevin Jackson, managing director of Consumer & Partnership Marketing for US Airways. "Using this research, we're able to create a very positive web experience for our customers."

Sensory Track is also helping the US Navy conduct several large-scale usability studies evaluating the effectiveness of cutting edge software tools designed to help recruits improve fundamental skills and knowledge.

Not content with simply measuring sight, Sensory Track is developing new technology to understand how all of our senses play a role in our decision-making processes when we deal with brands everyday. According to Dr. Atkinson, "Sensory Track's development team is constantly challenged with bringing us the most advanced tools available to study and record consumer behavior. When there are no tools to capture the data, our team is ready to develop them."