Comments on: Click survey 2, Electric Bugaloo

Click survey 2, Electric Bugaloo

mathowie — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 11:39:30 -0800

You might have caught the first Click Survey on mefi projects, but there's a new and much more interesting series of 8 images in Click Survey 2. Click where you feel like and watch the results in real time.

By: Optimus Chyme

Optimus Chyme — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 11:44:23 -0800

I was hoping someone would make a post about this. Great project.

By: Acey

Acey — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 11:50:13 -0800

The original looks much better now there are more clicks on it. I think this will improve over time much more. Some strange and interesting patterns here... not quite sure what any of it means, if it means anything...

By: Faint of Butt

Faint of Butt — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 11:51:20 -0800

This is really neat, and I'd love to know more about it. Is there some kind of behavioral thesis behind the whole thing, or is it all just for fun and idle curiosity? Also, I humbly request more pictures to click on, both abstract and representational.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 11:52:43 -0800

The problem with the 8 new ones is that clicks are also based on the last picture the person saw. Someone may want to always click in the same place, or in a diffrent place each time.

By: Plutor

Plutor — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 11:53:46 -0800

Flagged as self-link.

By: Floydd

Floydd — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 12:00:55 -0800

I got 'em all wrong.

By: jrb223

jrb223 — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 12:08:05 -0800

I liked click survey 1 as it seemed to suggest a possible way to track eye movement in art, or at least to figure out the significance of certain elements in a painting. What I mean is the way the clicks are mapped onto the image suggest to my mind a map of how most people's eyes traced the image. Which I find fascinating.

By: nadawi

nadawi — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 12:16:20 -0800

I really liked the first one. It felt less random.

By: jacquilynne

jacquilynne — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 12:17:53 -0800

I didn't even see 'don't click here' as it would have required scrolling my browser. I wasn't deliberately clicking anywhere in particular, except on the happy face picture, where I thought it'd be cute and odd to click where the nose would be. A huge number of other people also did so, and then I was disappointed in myself for being neither creative nor odd. I'm still examining why I felt that way, and how I feel about how I felt that way.

By: hal9k

hal9k — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 12:25:54 -0800

Thanks professor. And make mine Camembert if you would be so kind.

By: misteraitch

misteraitch — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 12:29:56 -0800

I was repeatedly drawn to the same dud pixel on my monitor, except in the few cases where it was obscured by a black part of one of the images: then I was confused, until I noticed some flecks of dust and a cat-hair, & clicked on those.

By: edgeways

edgeways — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 12:32:26 -0800

Metafilter: neither creative nor odd sorry

By: hoverboards don't work on water

hoverboards don't work on water — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 12:35:48 -0800

Is there some kind of behavioral thesis behind the whole thing, or is it all just for fun and idle curiosity? My theses: Image 1 illustrates our desire for order in chaos. Image 2 illustrates our yin and our yang, and our lesser known yong. Image 3 illustrates our hind-brain desire to accurately target running deer. Image 4 illustrates the ratio of conformists (top right) to non-conformists (everywhere else) to anarchists (bottom left). Image 5 illustrates our collective artistic yearning to hold the mirror up to nature more clearly. Image 6 illustrates our darker desire to shoot that deer again, even though it's dead. Image 7 illustrates how anarchists eventually break down into useless competing factions. Image 8 illustrates our desire to copy that which we like, but with our own attempt at creativity.

By: contessa

contessa — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 12:36:48 -0800

(awesome post title)

By: raedyn

raedyn — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 12:39:16 -0800

Neat. I wonder if the order the images are presented in changes where people tend to click. (My guess: it would make some difference).

By: agropyron

agropyron — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 12:55:14 -0800

They're both broken as far as I can see. Anyone else?

By: mrnutty

mrnutty — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 12:56:26 -0800

Yes, broken. Is there a metafilter equivalent to slashdotted? Metafiltered?

By: yhbc

yhbc — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 12:58:46 -0800

Yep, linky broky. Warning: mysql_connect() [function.mysql-connect]: Can't create a new thread (errno 11). If you are not out of available memory, you can consult the manual for a possible OS-dependent bug in /homepages/30/d39253161/htdocs/court/blog/lib/database.php on line 5 Couldn't connect to MySQL

By: bob sarabia

bob sarabia — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 13:04:27 -0800

Damnit, I was just going through that blog and you fuckers had to go and break it.

By: fenriq

fenriq — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 13:04:50 -0800

I kilt it! I kilt it with my clicking! What do I win?

By: armoured-ant

armoured-ant — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 13:05:29 -0800

It's Meffed, I think.

By: Cranberry

Cranberry — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 13:11:29 -0800

A thinly veiled test of the reactions of the last 7 frustrated mefites who could not access the pictures? Deep.

By: isopraxis

isopraxis — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 13:53:51 -0800

hmm methinks it be mefried and digg effect-ive disordered

By: goodnewsfortheinsane

goodnewsfortheinsane — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 13:56:32 -0800

Yeah. Warning: mysql_connect() [function.mysql-connect]: Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/tmp/mysqld.sock' (11) in /homepages/30/d39253161/htdocs/court/blog/lib/database.php on line 5 Couldn't connect to MySQL I thought it was some sneaky Rorsach test and you guys were seeing all kinds of things I wasn't.

By: goodnewsfortheinsane

goodnewsfortheinsane — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 13:59:09 -0800

Jeesh. I previewed but didn't see the commish's ages-old comment. Sorry.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 14:55:09 -0800

Working again. Man, people are sheep.

By: philipp

philipp — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 14:59:39 -0800

I optimized the script... sorry for the error messages. I gotta say I'm most fascinated by the second image right now... it's as if it split the X from the first image in half.

By: JZig

JZig — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 15:06:30 -0800

I was totally not expecting the x pattern. People really seem to like to subdivide space at corners (witness the last one). I also like how both the circle and smiley inspired people to emphasize on the horizontal symmetry, and click in the middle. No one seems to like vertical symmetry.

By: nickyskye

nickyskye — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 16:00:02 -0800

Cool post, mathowie. Thank you. jrb223, Interesting comment. Years ago a merchandising expert stopped at my street vending stand and explained how people's eyes move around a painting and that I would do better business if I arranged my display in that pattern. It worked immediately. There is quite a lot of work done on this, for a number of reasons. Gaze and eye tracking to help information be better placed on web pages etc. for learning, eyeputers, business, lots of reasons. Seems like Philipp Lenssen is quite a techocrat and doing some fun/interesting things. As a Googlaholic I'm interested in his work.

By: Jimbob

Jimbob — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 16:24:51 -0800

How are people "playing" these, because there seem to be two possible strategies that will result in different outcomes: (a) Immediately, unthinkingly click at the first spot that catches your eye. This is how I've been trying to do it because it seems the fairest. (b) Take your time to decide where to click, thinking "I bet not many people click here", or "There's no way I'm clicking on the text that says click here".

By: Plutor

Plutor — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 16:33:40 -0800

My favorite part is the logarithmic drop-off of interest. As of right now: f(1) = 16548 f(2) = 9578 f(3) = 7009 f(4) = 5879 f(5) = 5341 f(6) = 5003 f(7) = 4792 f(8) = 4683

By: Plutor

Plutor — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 16:35:10 -0800

Seriously, two-thirds of the idiots couldn't click to the end? Come on.

By: cortex

cortex — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 16:53:41 -0800

Yay! I liked the first one, and I like the second one even better.

By: Serial Killer Slumber Party

Serial Killer Slumber Party — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 16:54:57 -0800

What I mean is the way the clicks are mapped onto the image suggest to my mind a map of how most people's eyes traced the image Which explains the large number of clicks on the third woman's breasts, the pile of money and the booze! I really quite liked the first one actually. It'd be great to see this with a really complicated painting or photo.

By: nickyskye

nickyskye — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 17:06:10 -0800

By arranging the composition elements in a certain way, an artist controls and forces the movement of the viewer's eyes in and around the composition with the painting. Handy phrases for research on this topic are gaze data and eye tracking.

By: willnot

willnot — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 17:16:10 -0800

I think people don't click to the end because they don't get immediate feedback. When I finally got to the last page, I could barely remember where I had clicked or what each of the images represented. I liked the first one with the painting better. More like that would be helpful for composition. This just doesn't feel as interesting to me.

By: jack_mo

jack_mo — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 18:21:56 -0800

I just just found myself clicking in the same place every time, because there was nothing much to look at and I was keen to progress to a more interesting image, which never came. I suspect that if the first image had some content, I'd've bothered to scroll to a particular point, and continued to do so for the subsequent images. (Also, I second what willnot said about immediate feedback, and even when you get to the end, it's not much use knowing that 18,076 clicked in the same place I did on the first image if I don't know how many people in total have clicked on that image.)

By: loquacious

loquacious — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 19:38:50 -0800

I'm lazy. I click wherever my mouse happened to be. Now I'm tempted to go back and intentionally click lots of stuff and make it say "hi" or something. Image 2 illustrates our yin and our yang, and our lesser known yong. My yong is very well known, thank you.

By: jrb223

jrb223 — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 08:39:45 -0800

Thanks for the additional links and terminology, nickyskye, my first expoosure to this concept was way back in a high school studio art class, where, quite reductively, eye movement = art. The point we started from was that all art was simply repetition and variety, organized to create pleasurable eye movement. An overly simplified way of looking at art, certainly, but at the same time a pragmatically useful starting point for one looking to make art.