XM Asia Pacific Opens Consumer Experience Lab

Digital agency XM Asia Pacific has opened a Consumer Experience Lab in Singapore. The facility will use Tobii eye-tracking technology, heuristic techniques and usability metrics to examine how Asian consumers absorb the information they see in digital ads and traditional media.

A part of WPP's JWT network, XM Asia Pacific offers a full range of digital marketing and technology consulting services, ranging from business intelligence to consumer insights and user experience work, and from Internet app development to social media management and data analytics.

The new facility has been created as a regional centre for consumer research and human behavioural studies, and will support projects across Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, Thailand and Hong Kong.

The lab will be used to identify digital marketing tools and usability features to engage and influence consumer decisions. Clients will be able to choose from small, bespoke pilot audits and prototyping to enterprise-level projects.

Hema Thiagarajah (pictured), XM Asia's User-Experience Director, comments: 'We felt we needed to move beyond usability to understand the cognitive process that influences consumer decisions. By developing human heuristics, we will better understand how people interact with ads, products and services, even banners and web sites.'

Paul Soon, CEO of XM Asia Pacific, says his firm intends to use feedback from the lab to create its own Asia data and metrics instead of relying on US and European models.

Web site: www.xm-asia.com .