Fixed Usability Labs & Focus Group Facilities

Ovo Studios is a turnkey usability lab provider. We can assist you with your user-centered design facility infrastructure regardless of its current condition. We have helped customers:

Design new usability lab and focus group facilities.
Upgrade and retrofit entire labs that were built by other vendors.
Upgrade and retrofit specific lab sub-systems that deteriorated because the "lab guy" left the company.

Highlights of an Ovo Studios fixed usability lab include:

Simple furniture requirements for control rooms. This results in labs that are clean, flexible, and easy to relocate (if necessary.)
Scan converter-free labs so the user's computer screen is always viewed and recorded in native XGA.
Microphone isolation for user and test admin microphones resulting in feedback-free audio.
Easily extensible audio, video, and XGA circuits for simplified expansion to include phone taps, additional cameras (up to 7), and XGA inputs/outputs.

After working with you to design, build, and install your lab's A/V infrastructure, we provide services that will ensure the integrity of your lab through years of use, including:

Free loaner hardware for the first year of your lab should any hardware fail while under warranty.
Additional coverage and support after the first year of your lab's operation that includes:

A lab tune-up visit.
Free loaner hardware should any hardware fail while under warranty.
Retraining of lab staff as needed.

Our staff has been building labs for seven years and working as usability professionals in labs for almost 20 years. We know what works. We design user-centered design facilities to be robust enough for daily use yet flexible enough for almost any product that development teams need to test.

Can an Ovo lab support remote user testing?

Yes. Simply connect your remote user to your user computer via any commercially available desktop sharing service (e.g., Gotomeeting, Webex) and put them on speakerphone in the user room. It's as if they were sitting in the user room.

What kind of products can be tested in an Ovo usability lab?

Our usability labs are used for testing all kinds of products:

Thin-client software
Fat client software
Hardware
Collaborative gaming.

How many rooms does an Ovo lab have?

As many as you want. We have designed single labs with one, two, and three rooms and lab suites with many more.

Where are some pictures of an Ovo lab?

Our customers tend to regard their labs as intellectual property, so we do not post pictures of their labs.