Let me start this off by saying that IMC2 is a company I’ve followed for the past few years, and I’ve always wanted to get in the doors to see what this funky, bring your dog to work, laid-back atmosphere was really like. More about that later, but first lets get to the stuff that is actually important.

HFI’s Presentation

The presentation was basically just a look at the software and what it can do. I was hoping to get some info I could apply to my sites, but I guess that would be hoping for too much.

The equipment and software is pretty amazing though. HFI uses the Tobii for their eye tracking studies, and it does do some pretty amazing things.

The way Tobii works is it uses 2 cameras to track a spot just above the pupil of your eye. After a short calibration of the machine, you’re good to go. The visual representation of the tracking looks like red dots with scribbles in between.  While this is going on on the front end, the software on the back end is busy throwing coordinates into a database. These coordinates are what allows usability folks to create heat maps, graphs, and other statistical representations of the user’s experience.

Back to the Fun

So, back to the amazing offices of IMC2. Part way through the HFI presentation we had to sneak out to find the restrooms (free beer and sitting for a long time do not mix) and ended up on a tour of the offices with one of their usability guys. They actually have two offices in Dallas, so I can only vouch for the coolness of the one I visited. This place was amazing! They have little balconies all around the building, one is a big one that they call the backyard. They have a Guitar Hero room, a zen room, a conference room with the furniture hanging upside down from the ceiling, and awesome break-out rooms for teams to hang out and be creative. I wish I had taken my camera phone with me to snag some pictures, cause it was super cool.