HE-Arc inaugurates its UX-Lab
The Haute Ecole Arc Ingénierie has inaugurated the UX-Lab on its Neuchâtel campus. Aimed both at its students and researchers, and at the regional economic fabric, this user experience research laboratory aims to contribute to the design of products and services that increasingly meet the expectations of their future users.
A UX-Lab (UX = user experience) is a user testing laboratory. Through various scenarios, it reveals and evaluates the experience resulting from interaction between a product or service and its user. The user's actions are scrupulously analyzed by people in an observation room, made invisible from the test room by one-way glass.
In the observation room, ergonomists and those in charge of the design project (engineers and sales staff) observe the facilities and obstacles the tester encounters in using the product or service. To help them do this, they can rely on images transmitted by cameras positioned in various parts of the test room.
These observers also use sophisticated equipment to record the tester's behavioral and physiological data. For example, eyeglasses with invisible sensors can track his gaze (eye tracking) or a bracelet can measure his electrodermal activity and thus provide information on the emotions he is feeling.
Physical and digital products
Products put to the test can be either physical or digital. In this second category, we will give the example of a smartphone application that the Haute Ecole Arc Ingénierie developed with the Hôpital du Jura to help patients manage their appointments in the oncology department and take their medication. The data collected in this way enabled us to iteratively develop the product so that it best met the needs of patients and nursing staff.
The UX Lab is located on the first floor of the Arc 2 Campus, on the Neuchâtel train station plateau. It is managed by engineers from HE-Arc's User-Centered Product Design skills group, whose aim is to design products that meet users' expectations ever more effectively.
These expectations are linked not only to the product's instrumental qualities (its usability) but also to more subjective factors, such as aesthetics or the values it conveys. Ultimately, work contributes to making the product more attractive to future customers (sells better), more intuitive to use (lower training costs) and less costly to produce (fewer "unsuitable" products).
Available to companies and other regional institutions
The UX Lab is not only reserved for HE-Arc researchers and students; it is also directly available to the regional economic fabric. Companies and other institutions can come and test their products or services under the watchful eye of their project managers and/or HE-Arc specialists.
They offer their services either in the form of direct mandates, or short training courses which then enable companies and other institutions to carry out the tests themselves at the UX-Lab.
And if the usability of the product or service cannot be assessed in the UX Lab test room, HE-Arc specialists travel to the client's premises, where they carry out user tests using their mobile equipment.
Source: Haute École Arc
