The equipment of the two control rooms supports the usability engineer's control, observational, logging, and monitoring tasks. From his/her console the usability engineer is able to operate numerous cameras (which are located in the three different labs) remotely and simultaneously in order to collect data like facial expressions, movements (hand, mouse and body), close-ups, zooming in/out, swivelling, etc. 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.

In addition, the visual output of our eye tracking recordings (points/circles on the screen visualizing the user's eye focus as well as the duration of fixations, eye-movement paths, etc.) can be added to the video material.

State-of-the-art Technologies

The usability engineer is supported by a state-of-the-art computer software. This software enables him/her to capture his/her observations, comments, and views in a structured way. The software can collect and analyse a variety of relevant data (time, clicks, etc.).

As communication is a crucial aspect of most of the research settings, the rooms' audio facilities are interconnected. Fixed and mobile microphones and loudspeakers assure high quality sound and speech recording and transfer. Communication settings can be adapted flexibly to meet specific research requirements.

The technical equipment, which make all this possible, is highly sophisticated and specifically adopted to meet our requirements and specifications. Our control and monitoring facilities are more flexible than any other comparable lab in use. It allows the conducting of a broad range of studies and behavioural research settings.