1. Least intrusive:
The lab should not contain any unnatural or unexpected equipment such as huge suitcases for equipment or lots of wiring through the room. The use of consumer equipment known by the typical participant is recommended (such as e.g. laptop computers, camcorders, tripods etc.)
2. As little equipment as possible:
Each piece of equipment
3. Low time to set up:
A mobile lab is called “mobile” because it needs to be set up quickly at different locations. E.g. in case of use in a typical company office environment there is no time for long lasting set ups with putting cables through the room connecting lots of devices to each other and to power supply (in that point of view the use of video mixers and audio mixers is unwanted and too complicated)
4. Low time to tear down:
If an onsite test has been finished (e.g. at a consumers home), you typically don’t want to take a long time to disassemble all equipment and stow it away properly. Maybe you have to catch the next plane or need to go to another participant.
5. Post analysis:
Using a mobile lab also means that most of the coding and analysis has to be done offline in your office, after the test recording. During the test there is little time for making complex annotations or coding, based on the fact that lots of things happen simultaneously, which need your attention and are very difficult to track quickly and properly (e.g. making a note while the user switches a task and something interesting happens at the same time)
Don’t waste time trying to figure out which camera connects to which microphone and how to record your data feeds in sync. Contact us now and benefit from more than 25 years of experience in building observation labs.
1. Participant is sitting in front of a laptop computer and the Mangold Vision Eye Tracker records his eye movements during the presentation of several stimuli (showing images, movies/commercials or recording the participant’s actions on the computer while he/she is surfing the web or using a desktop application)
2. If the participant is surfing the web or using a desktop application, the Mangold Vision software records the following information on the participant’s computer
Scenario A.1: Unattended Eye Tracking Usability Test
3. In case the participant is looking at images (design studies of applications / web front-ends, different advertisements …) or video footage (commercials / help systems …) the Mangold Vision Eye Tracker records all relevant gaze data so that a post analysis shows what the participant has looked on in which way.
4. After the test(s) has (have) been finished, the test conductor goes back into his/her office and uses the Mangold Vision analysis software suite to analyze the recorded gaze data of all participants.
5. All graphical and numerical output created by Mangold Vision analysis software can be used to create reports easily by copying and pasting this information into Microsoft Excel / Word or Power Point or any other similar program.
6. The researcher can copy all video files and the Mangold INTERACT coding documents to external hard drives and hand them out to research assistants who should do further coding, transcriptions or analysis by using their own copies of the Mangold INTERACT software package.
Findings and analysis results of different analysts can be easily integrated into a single Mangold INTERACT coding document. This means that you will finally have all information of your studies at your fingertips to create comparative statistics and great looking charts easily and quickly.
7. The moderator can sit next to the participant during the test, using the Mangold INTERACT coding software suite and start the recording of a video camcorder and the eye tracker in sync.
8. The camcorder is recording the user’s behavior and audio onto a MiniDV tape or onto a built in hard disk.
9. The moderator can record comments / annotation and coding using the Mangold INTERACT coding software suite.
10. After the test(s) has (have) been finished, the test conductor goes back into his/her office and uses the Mangold Vision analysis software suite to analyze the recorded gaze data of all participants.
Scenario A.2: Attended Eye Tracking Usability Test
11. In case the camera has a hard drive or memory card, the video can be copied easily to e.g. a USB hard drive. In case a Mini-DV camera has been used the video needs to be converted using a MPEG converter box or a software converter. The video can then be stored as a file onto a computer's hard drive.
12. The user video and the screen capture video can be opened up simultaneously within Mangold INTERACT. Based on the previously made coding and annotations the researcher can now quickly navigate in the recorded videos and add more coding and annotations to get a full picture of the recorded situation.
13. Statistics, reliability analysis, statistical charts, and other visualizations can easily be done based on the collected information.
14.All this output can be used to create reports easily by copying and pasting numerical output and charts into Microsoft Excel / Word or Power Point or any similar program.
15. The researcher can copy all video files and the Mangold INTERACT coding documents to external hard drives and hand them out to research assistants who should do further coding, transcriptions or analysis by using their own copies of the Mangold INTERACT software package.
Findings and analysis results of different analysts can be easily integrated into a single Mangold INTERACT coding document. This means that you will finally have all information of your studies at your fingertips to create comparative statistics and great looking charts easily and quickly.
1. Participant is using a 3rd party computer (a computer in a corporate environment in government or industry or a civil place). The computer’s screen is captured using a VGA converter, so that the result is an AVI video on the external recording computer.
2. The observer is using a laptop computer to record the test subject’s screen (see above) and to control recording of an external camcorder (including audio) in sync with the video recording.
3. The camcorder is recording the user’s behavior and audio onto a MiniDV tape or onto a built in hard disk.
4. The moderator can record comments / annotation and coding using the Mangold INTERACT coding software suite.
Scenario B:Computer with VGA output/Kiosk test
5. In case the camera has a hard drive or memory card, the video can be copied easily to e.g. a USB hard drive. In case a Mini-DV camera has been used the video needs to be converted using a MPEG converter box or a software converter. The video can then be stored as a file onto a computer's hard drive.
6. The user video and the screen capture video can be opened up simultaneously within Mangold INTERACT. Based on the previously made coding and annotations the researcher can now quickly navigate in the recorded videos and add more coding and annotations to get a full picture of the recorded situation.
7. Statistics, reliability analysis, statistical charts, and other visualizations can easily be done based on the collected information.
8. All this output can be used to create reports easily by copying and pasting numerical output and charts into Microsoft Excel / Word or Power Point or any similar program.
9. The researcher can copy all video files and the Mangold INTERACT coding documents to external hard drives and hand them out to research assistants who should do further coding, transcriptions or analysis by using their own copies of the Mangold INTERACT software package.
Findings and analysis results of different analysts can be easily integrated into a single Mangold INTERACT coding document. This means that you will finally have all information of your studies at your fingertips to create comparative statistics and great looking charts easily and quickly.
1. A group of participants is sitting around a table solving a task (planning, problem solving, assessment center test, design and invention session etc.) One or two camcorders document the whole situation including audio.
2. An observer is sitting next to the group recording comments / annotations and doing some coding using the Mangold INTERACT coding software suite. He/she can start both camcorders in sync using his/her laptop computer – but this is not recommended in mobile lab situations, because this would require some cables through the room which might cause accidents.
Using Mangold INTERACT the videos could be synchronized easily after the recording session, even if recording has not been started in sync.
Scenario C: Team analysis
3. In case the camera has a hard drive or memory card, the video can be copied easily to e.g. a USB hard drive. In case a Mini-DV camera has been used the video needs to be converted using a MPEG converter box or a software converter. The video can then be stored as a file onto a computer's hard drive.
4. Both videos can be opened up simultaneously within Mangold INTERACT. Based on the previously made coding and annotations the researcher can now quickly navigate in the recorded videos and add more coding and annotations to get a full picture of the recorded situation.
5. Statistics, reliability analysis, statistical charts, and other visualizations can easily be done based on the collected information.
6. All this output can be used to create reports easily by copying and pasting numerical output and charts into Microsoft Excel / Word or Power Point or any similar program.
7. The researcher can copy all video files and the Mangold INTERACT coding documents to external hard drives and hand them out to research assistants who should do further coding, transcriptions or analysis by using their own copies of the Mangold INTERACT software package.
Findings and analysis results of different analysts can be easily integrated into a single Mangold INTERACT coding document. This means that you will finally have all information of your studies at your fingertips to create comparative statistics and great looking charts easily and quickly.
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