The usability engineering laboratories at Sun Microsystems

In designing and constructing the laboratories for Sun Microsystems, the company's need for highly efficient and proficient evaluations was a significant factor in driving the design decisions. The laboratories needed to facilitate data gathering and analysis, in addition to providing an appealing forum for the product teams to watch the evaluations live. This paper describes the goals for designing the usability laboratories, the video equipment used, the construction requirements, and tools used (such as event-logging software). Many of these design considerations are applicable to any usability laboratory.