[Sigia-l] Building a usability lab

[Smith, Denise (Hewitt)]

The first question to ask is what kind of testing you intend to do - some of
our testing happens in a conference room! Some of it in the "lab." our labs
were actually designed with a one-way mirror so outsiders could observe
testing, but we've refused to actually let it be used (I have a shower
curtain hanging in front of it) because the only OTHER place you see one-way
mirrors is in an interrogation room in a police station!

What we have done, that I am really proud of, is set up the testing lab so
that each user can use the computer they are most comfortable with - we have
Macs with all the available browsers, all of the Windows platforms &
browsers, Linux, OS/2, etc.

Our "lab" itself is portable, all of the equipment packs up into a large
suit case so we can test off-site as well.  This is an advantage in a
consulting environment as sometimes clients are dead-set on having us test
AT their company's location regardless of how we argue it  otherwise.

Hope this has been atleast a little helpful.

Best regards,

Denise

-----Original Message-----
From: Andres Sulleiro [mailto:andres at sulleiro.com]
Sent: Thursday, December 12, 2002 3:08 PM
To: IA List
Subject: [Sigia-l] Building a usability lab



[sorry for the cross-post]

My boss has gone mad and decided he wants to build a state of the art
usability lab. Here is a blunt question: where do I start?

I have lot's of resources on what is involved in a simple lab. I know
the principles of it and I'm guessing its not much different except for
the complexity of the hardware and software (and cost, of course).

I guess I'm hoping somewhere out there one of you has gone through this
already and has learned what are the pitfalls and problems that come
along the way.

Please, anything you can give me...

-- Andrés



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