Today we’re checking out Feng-GUI (fung-gway), a heatmap simulator for webmasters and visual designers. In their own words,
Find out how people see your website, photo or ad and which areas are getting most of the attention. This artificial intelligence service simulates human vision during the first 5 seconds of exposure to visuals.
Feng-GUI is very easy to use. You can start uploading images and generating simulated heatmaps within moments, with no registration needed. Here’s what it spit out for a screenshot of our site.
Feng GUI likes the pretty pictures.
One minor annoyance as a webmaster is the need to screenshot their site and upload it as an image. Hopefully future versions will include built-in thumbnailing to allow webmasters to simply input a URL.
Feng-GUI cleverly borrows inspiration for its name from Feng Shui, the modern Chinese practice of arranging objects to generate good energy. Like it’s namesake, I suspect Feng-GUI also incorporates some degree of bullshit into their algorithms. Take my next image for example.
Who littered? Feng GUI wants to know!
While Feng-GUI surely fits the definition of tech crud, It is always refreshing to see a startup with an actual technological development behind it over yet another regurgitated “social networking for [bleh]” business model. In that respect Feng-GUI earns good marks from this reviewer.
The Good: Easy and cheap, just the way I like them.
The Bad: Not all that useful.
TechCrud Grade: B-
Forecast: Relegated to life as a tech novelty, despite improvements in its technology.
Loading ...
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Feng Shui 10.09.08 at 10:51 pm
In the real world, shot sitting one cube over, and you have to build the GUI yourself. Feng Shui
daksi_usdi 10.26.08 at 6:28 pm
What a really strange thing. I can’t imagine why anyone would want this at all!
Ankur Mohta 10.28.08 at 7:34 am
This one is good because it gives me knowledge about Feng Shui. I loved it really.
Faraz 10.30.08 at 3:06 am
For me this service has proven very usefull. You get instant feedback on design changes that you want to try out. Real user research is a whole different ballgame of course.