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Carleton University | |
The Human Oriented Technology Lab (HOT Lab) is a unique university-based Human Computer Interaction (HCI) research and training facility that fosters interdisciplinary research, education and training to improve interactive technologies for human endeavors. It was established in 1978 and is, to the best of our knowledge, one of the oldest HCI labs residing in a psychology department in North America. Facilities
Our current laboratory consists of 6 experiment rooms. Each of the experiment rooms has 2+ work stations, PCs and Macs, with both cable and wireless internet access and 2 cameras for specific test sessions. All of our cameras can make close-ups, can swivel and zoom in/out. The recorded videos/pictures can be sampled in various settings: numerous picture-in-picture combinations, as well as different sizes and formats can be produced.  Video taping. For traditional video tape analysis we use JVC audio-video analysis workstations. For quantitative analyses data obtained by various means, including task completion, error frequency and user behaviors data collected with The Observer, are exported to Microsoft Excel and to statistical analysis programs such as SPSS. Applications such as E-Prime and DirectRT, form a suite of application allowing data collection, accurate to the millisecond, through data handling and processing of reaction time/response time data. These programs also allow presentation of sound, video, images and text with the same level of precision, as well as obtaining accurate, high-speed response input from keyboards, mice, joysticks, microphones and external hardware.  Our building. The new HCI Building was added to our existing facilities in February 2007. It houses a multitude of labs that will be equipped with physiological data collection & analysis equipment, advanced audio- and video recording and analysis equipment, portable usability labs, virtual reality simulators, and much more. Several of the labs are equipped with one-way mirrors to experiment rooms on both sides of the centrally located control rooms, enabling simultaneous monitoring of groups working on the same exercise in different labs. |   Experiment room. The main experiment room is connected to the observation room or control room. Besides a one-way mirror, three cameras mounted to the ceiling keep track of user movements on the screen, finger movements on the keyboard and facial expression. The interactions on the monitor are captured via various screen-capture software applications. The main experiment room houses a Tobii 1750 eye tracker and a workstation as well. The eye-tracking equipment is used for research questions requiring analysis of the users' eye movements. The output of Clearview, an eye tracking software application, includes time stamp, gaze position relative to stimuli for each eye, position in camera field of view of each eye and pupil size of each eye. This tool is useful for studies such as information visualization research and usable security research with a focus on authentication mechanisms such as graphical passwords. It helps to understand how users select passwords and the prevalence of hot spots on different images.  Observation room. The observation room is equipped with The Observer workstation for video data capturing and analysis. The software is useful for studies that require the synchronization of various input streams to measure where people are looking, what they are saying and what they are doing. It is when assessments such as visual appeal, perceived usability, web site security, trust and the like are of interest.  Seminar lab. Our seminar lab has 5 cameras, teleconferencing phone, a work station and a smartboard, a touch-sensitive interactive whiteboard that connects a computer and a digital projector to show computer images. Group research such as focus groups and participatory design sessions are performed in this room.
Human Oriented Technology Lab Department of Psychology |
