SCANNING YOUR BRAIN FOR THE PERFECT T-SHIRT!

Red? no, no…definitely black. Hmm, the white is nice but then again is anything better than black?

While shopping is pleasurable, no one can deny the grueling inner dialogue that accompanies it. The process is one of second guessing, triple guessing, and occasionally all out defeat.

Recently, the innovative behemoth Uniqlo tried to solve this conundrum by scanning your brain!

Fresh off Back to the Future Day, this notion surely seems ripped right out of the movie. However the process is no fluke. Uniqlo dubbed this method UMood and implemented it in a traveling tour across Australia.

So how exactly does UMood work?

“You sit down in front of a screen wearing the brain-computer-interface (BCI) headset. You get shown a series of images and videos, showing things like people lying in hammocks, storm clouds and dogs, and the UMood analyses your neurological responses as you view them. From there, an algorithm matches your response to a number of T-shirt designs before narrowing your response down to a single suggested shirt.”

Talk about stress free shopping. Specifically, UMood quantifies five states of mind: interest, like, stress, concentration and drowsiness. It uses these measures to construct your reaction to any given shirt and assign it a points value.

A reporter for Cnet recently tried out the process and his reaction was a little skeptical.

“From there, a series of shirt designs popped up, one of which I was moderately taken with. After some quick deliberation, UMood suggested a blue shirt with Iron Man on it. It’s actually hard to imagine a shirt I would be less likely to wear. It kind of looked like something an uncool 14-year-old would wear to a party which, I confess in retrospect, would actually be quite adventurous of me. Perhaps UMood knows me better than I thought.”

The shirt suggested by UMood.

While not entirely perfect UMood marks yet another exciting possibility in the retail space. It certainly opens the door for stations in major retailers in the future with similar suggestive powers. The process feels like a natural progression to the suggestion algorithms that consumers are currently familiar with, Netflix being the best example.

Will UMood strip the consumer of all decision making? Doubtful. As seen with the Cnet reporter the technology strongly accounts for personal reactions. What it doesn’t necessarily quantify is the social implications of this 30 year old man wearing a t-shirt that my 5 year old cousin would adore. Instead, UMood marks another avenue for retailers to consider as tech continues to disrupt the fashion industry.

The reporter with his 3rd choice selection.