Noldus Information Technology builds state-of-the-art user experience lab in Salzburg, Austria

One of the most advanced user experience labs in Europe was recently installed by Noldus in the heart of the old town of Salzburg, Austria, at the Center for Advanced Studies and Research in Information and Communication Technologies & Society. Noldus Information Technology has designed and built the complete lab, which is equipped with state-of-the-art software and hardware to enable highly advanced multimodal testing. The ICT&S Center is part of the University of Salzburg and is directed by Dr. Ursula Maier-Rabler. The user experience lab is now a core facility of the Human Computer Interaction and Usability Unit, which is directed by Manfred Tscheligi. The lab was officially opened on 3 May 2006, when managing director Lucas Noldus was invited to speak during the opening symposium. 

The audience during the opening symposium:
on the front row Ursula Maier-Rabler (left), Lucas Noldus (second from left)
and Manfred Tscheligi (middle).
 
The research conducted within the ICT&S Center is mainly focused on new information and communication technologies and their interrelationship with society as a whole. Prof. Tscheligi: “The now opened usability and user experience lab allows us to develop a variety of experiments with a high degree of situational flexibility. The overall goal is to collect multimodal data for different interaction situations."

The ICT&S lab consists of:

1. The Usability Lab area inside the ICT&S Center: This room is equipped with digital cameras which deliver video streams via the network. There are wall-mounted cameras as well as cameras on tripods. Furthermore, the Control Desk is located in this room, with all the equipment to control the cameras, log the observations, choose the audio/video inputs to be recorded etc.

2. Any other area within the ICT&S Center: There is a whole range of other areas relevant for usability testing within the ICT&S Center, such as a huge 3D-projection, the Meeting Room with its projection screen, or the ICT&S Lounge, which is an area with a wall-mounted plasma screen to relax in.

3. The courtyards of the ICT&S Center: The two outdoor areas can also be used for usability and user experience experimentation. In the outer courtyard a digital camera is mounted in an unobtrusive dome housing.

4. The surroundings next to the ICT&S Center: In an extended set-up, an interactively arranged public space (Max-Reinhardt-Platz) neighboring the ICT&S Center is also considered for testing purposes.

Floorplan of the ICT&S lab

Noldus Information Technology has provided fixed and flexible cameras in all indoor and outdoor test areas to record subjects’ behavior. Wireless audio speakers, transmitters, receivers, and sensitive microphones are integrated in each room for sound processing.

Screen contents of the test PC’s are transmitted and recorded with a hardware screen capture system (enabling remote control), and the specific place where the user is looking at on the interface can be tracked with an eye tracker. In this set-up, no software has to be installed on the test PC, so there is no influence on the PC and the experience of the participant. All recorded data are stored synchronously to ensure a meaningful analysis of the test. With use of The Observer, all data modalities are seamlessly integrated.

The Control Desk in the Usability Lab, with on the right screen
The Observer displayed.

From the control desk it is possible to control the whole test situation: adjusting the cameras, recording any available inputs (audio, video, eye tracking data, physiological measurements, etc.) synchronously, communicating with the test participant via radio microphones (important for test situations outside the lab), producing an event-log during the test using The Observer, and more.

After the test, qualitative and quantitative statistical analyses on the recorded data are carried out with use of Theme and MatMan for example, to compile a high-quality usability or user experience report. Besides all equipment for the fixed test rooms, a portable lab is featured to allow on-site testing for clients.

Wibo ten Hove, sales manager at Noldus, comments: “This is one of the most flexible systems we have ever created. One of the challenges in this historic building was to use as few cables as possible, that is why, amongst others, we used wireless audio and cameras that use the preinstalled network.”

In sum, the lab of the ICT&S Center offers the possibility to conduct truly flexible research in the area of information and communication technologies.

Visit the ICT&S center's web site at http://icts.uni-salzburg.at/.