Facilities, Equipment, and Laboratory Resources: User Studies Lab

User Studies Lab

The User Studies Lab (USL) is a multi-room facility for research on human-computer interaction. The lab has been used for dozens of investigations into the usability of new technology and interaction techniques. Computer scientists have studied speech-recognition, command languages, and help systems; psychologists have studied computer-aided instruction and human-robot interaction; faculty in the English Department have studied documentation and collaborative writing; the business school has studied errors in telephone-based interactions and the efficacy of object-oriented programming; and engineers have studied the effects of access to large databases on engineering policy decisions. The USL also is used for training researchers and students to perform "think-aloud," observational, and other empirical usability studies.

The USL has equipment for single-user laboratory and field recording of color video data. The USL is housed in Newell Simon Hall, where it has space to accommodate research into the usability of multi-media, multi-user, multi-location computer systems. One room allows for investigations of the performance of groups of people (e.g., a 12-person design team) as they use networked systems, shared workspaces, and other computer-mediated group-support tools. Combinations of rooms allow researchers to study communications among between local and remote groups, using technologies including wireless networks, personal digital assistants, video communications, or wearable computers. Video, audio, and data-analysis equipment can be loaned to researchers to collect and analyze data outside the laboratory.

Additional laboratory space, with real-time automobile and truck simulators, is currently available through the Robotics Field Laboratory.

Susan Fussell (susan.fussell@cmu.edu) manages the HCII laboratory space and equipment. To find out more about equipment or scheduling experiments, contact Susan. In Susan's absence, contact for information or help. Available equipment includes Hi8 camcorders and microphones, computer/video/audio technology for data analysis, and tape copying and CD burning equipment.

Lab A - one or two users

Lab B - satellite work space, analysis area

Lab C - group work or unusual environments (e.g. bicycle maintenance using wearable computers). This room has a folding partition to divide it in half to allow for separate experiments to run simultaneously.

To participate in experiments, click on
http://softrade-11.gsia.cmu.edu/participants/event_list.asp