Lab Services Available for Usability Testing, Heuristic Evaluations, Focus Groups and More. Sony Online Entertainment announce its ability to provide in-house Usability Lab services to outside companies. The Usability Lab provides a disciplined approach to product development that incorporates user centric feedback throughout the process.“New product development lends itself to a host of potential obstacles, many of which could be overcome with preemptive testing,” said Paul Venuti, Director, Development Services, Sony Online Entertainment. “By opening the doors to the Usability Lab we are able to share our industry expertise with other development companies, while offering a cost effective way to test their products and services prior to launch.”
The Usability Lab was created to test video games in development at SOE. The first game to benefit from the Usability Lab testing was Free Realms, which launched on April 28th and has since acquired more than five million registered users. During the development process all aspects of Free Realms were tested in the lab including the tutorial, user interface and gameplay mechanics allowing the development team to make necessary changes to the game prior to launch.
The SOE Usability Lab consists of top of the line PCs and PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment systems, and is able to accommodate projects varied in size and scope. The services offered are:
• Usability Testing
• Heuristic Evaluations
• Focus Groups
• Product Evaluations
For more information about the Usability Lab visit www.soedevservices.com