Preference profilers: 'We know what you bought last summer'

So in 1996 and again in 2001, QualiData taped several dozen people of all shapes and sizes while a camera crew monitored the event from just outside the bathroom.

"We found ... the spray was too restricted to be really comfortable," says Dr. Mariampolski. On tape, the subjects used the water to relax or energize themselves. They lost track of time. One man prayed.

For many people, "it's more than a cleaning experience," Mariampolski explains. "They're looking for some psychic outcome." Based on Moen's research, its "Revolution" showerhead was born.

Launched last August and priced at the upper end of showerheads, the "Revolution" offers users a dial that can can be easily adjusted with one hand. The showerhead spins the droplets, which hit all points of the body with more force.

The observational research has "given us a much better understanding about what occurs in people's showers," says Jack Suvak, director of marketing research for Ohio-based Moen.

And it reinforces one principle that many observational researchers agree on: They can delve into very private areas as long as the consumer has the choice up front not to participate. How obvious that choice should be gets a little tricky.

In downtown Minneapolis, a retail-brand agency called Fame runs an elegant store that sells an eclectic mix of gifts and housewares from $1.99 greeting cards to $15,000 antique furniture.

But it's really a laboratory for retailers. Wired with microphones and cameras, the store carries products that manufacturers want to test on shoppers.

Earlier this month, Fame displayed a variety of soaps with unusual ingredients. It found that while eggplant soap might attract the curious, shoppers generally gravitated to more familiar scents. The cameras also collect other clues.

"We can test a customer's interest in a product by how often they pick it up, how they look at it," says Jeri Quest, Fame's executive vice president of strategic development.

Often, a Fame researcher will approach a customer to ask for additional information. So far, the combination of overt and covert research has elicited no complaints.

"Customers understand what's happening, and they have a choice" to shop or not shop at the store, Ms. Quest says. Just outside the store, a blinking sign alerts would-be shoppers when a test is under way.

Of course, observational researchers also tape customers without their knowledge – a practice researchers defend as long as customers remain anonymous.

"They're not interested in prying into the lives and burrowing into people as personalities," says Bill Abrams, president and founder of Housecalls Inc., a New York market-research firm. "They just want to know how consumers in general approach the shelves and select the product."

As for identifying individuals and their habits without their knowledge: "That's a little bit invasive," he says. "When it gets beyond a certain point, yes, a line needs to be drawn."

With little steps, technology is already moving in that direction. Brickstream Corp., a software firm in Arlington, Va., has developed software that tracks people as they move around the store.

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