How FURYU is keeping up with Japan’s changing youth culture

It has been almost 30 years since the introduction of the first photo sticker machine in Japan, and they’ve been a staple of youth culture ever since. These photo booths allow teens to capture moments with their friends, edit the shots using stamps and effects, and print out stickers with the photos on top.

The need to keep in current

Since bursting into arcades, and Japanese youth culture in general, photo sticker machines have become more advanced, with additional features, effects, as well as instructions and prompts. FURYU, owners of 94% of the market share, wanted to ensure their machines stay popular with new generations of Japanese youngsters, by collecting high quality user insights.  

FURYU's success is partly down to frequent user interviews and a speedy development system that helps the company stay on top of the trends and behaviors of the ever-changing Japanese teen culture. This has helped FURYU maintain a strong reputation amongst high-school and university aged girls.  

But FURYU’s methods were still limited in their effectiveness, with many interviewees providing ambiguous answers, a lack of reliable process verification, and internal discussions that were introversive due to a lack of evidence available. To really understand how Gen Z are using photo sticker machines now, FURYU would need a user research tool that provides clear and valid data.  

Understanding today’s teens 

FURYU decided to enlist the services of Tobii, to scrutinize and assess the performance of their user experience using eye tracking. In this study, the primary objective was to uncover insights that are missed in FURYU’s frequent user interviews. The research team from Tobii led the investigation, determining aspects such as the players' visual focus during gameplay and their understanding of the buttons and functions. 

Tobii Pro Glasses 3, a wearable eye tracker designed for dynamic measurement, was used to collect gaze data. The eye tracking glasses record eye movement while participants are in motion or in unpredictable environments. Participants were invited to join the study as part of a pair, mirroring how teens typically use photo sticker machines with their friends or a partner.  

Using one of FURYU’s machines typically involves the user selecting options like finishing style, background, and sticker patterns, inserting money into a machine outside the booth, then posing for the camera. After being photographed, participants move to a station behind the booth where they can add scribbles, stamps, and other effects to their pictures using a monitor.  

In this eye-tracking study, participants were equipped with Tobii Pro Glasses 3 and asked to go through this entire procedure allowing close observation of gaze patterns and shifts in attention. Subsequently, participants were interviewed with eye tracking data as a reference helping the research team unpack insights about both attractiveness and understanding, for a much more detailed picture of user behavior.  

Rethinking photo sticker machines 

Some results of the eye tracking study differed from FURYU’s key initial assumptions. Before embarking on the UX study, FURYU had assumed the introductory video outside the booth was a key point of engagement. Attention data from the company’s key demographic showed that this video was barely registered upon entering.  

This is a theme that continued throughout the user journey: explanations, prompts, and information were often ignored. On the scribble screen, for example, the photo and background were clearly seen, but the explanations of the functions which appeared at the bottom of the screen, were almost missed entirely.  

The study also challenged assumptions about the link between understanding and attraction. It was previously believed that an element’s attractiveness was directly proportional to how easy it was to understand. The eye tracking results showed that even when an element was not fully understood, it was often thought of as “cute”, and managed to attract users regardless. This was a big step toward disentangling conceptions of understandability and effectiveness when designing the UX for FURYU’s machines.  

FURYU have also discovered another reward of eye tracking data. With eye tracking recordings that can be easily understood and clearly conveyed amongst the team, internal stakeholders develop new hypotheses and test them multiple times. What’s more, design challenges become easier to visualize, and proposals for change become ever more persuasive thanks to the clear eye tracking evidence available. For FURYU, that means a more agile business that can keep up with the changing trends of Japanese youth culture.

The future 

FURYU has committed to using eye-tracking technology to keep pace with the rapidly evolving preferences of Gen Z users. But their ambitions don't stop there; they also intend to extend their use of eye tracking to understand the types of social media and videos that users engage with on their smartphones, another key benefit of Tobii’s eye tracking solutions.