Bell, Canada’s largest communications company, has officially launched a state-of-the-art Bell Web Solutions usability lab in Toronto which shows businesses exactly how their customers will respond to both Web sites and mobile applications, allowing Bell clients to refine their products to enhance the user experience and get the business results they want.
The usability lab tracks eye movements and uses emotional response recorders to identify precisely what grabs people’s attention and what they completely ignore. Customers who engage the usability lab get a real-time view of how people respond to their Web sites or mobile applications.
“Not only do we provide hard data on what is working for users, but our clients can also gain tangible insight in real time,” says Gilmond Lapointe, regional general manager, professional services, for the Bell Enterprise Group. “Through one-way glass they can see for themselves how test subjects react, even while keeping an eye on the monitors that show the spikes in emotions and the time that eyes are glued to a site.”
Armed with that information, Web site and applications designers can make much more confident decisions on what works and what doesn’t from the perspective of the end user.
2 Comments To "Bell Launches Usability Lab"
#1 Comment By Chris Heap On 8 March 2009 @ 20:57 @915
Gail, does a website or other point of information exist for this development?
Given the launch in the U.S of 3Ms Informatics products (www.3m.com/informatics); I wonder what the similarities and differences are between the two approaches, at least in terms of assessing and quantifying what the standards of measurement are.
It appears that Bell is testing against real people in a lab environment and 3M are testing against their data/software, each of which are quite different methods but aim to measure the same; that is a measurement of the effectiveness of communicating through digital media across a variety of platforms (screens/web/mobile) in real or near real environments.
I may have gotten this wrong; happy to be corrected if so.
#2 Comment By Chris.Heap On 9 March 2009 @ 01:14 @093
You seem to have the right fix on Bell. I don’t know of a Web site re same but I’ll contact Bell on Monday to see if there is one. I know that the lab has been used by Canadian Tire Financial Services, among others.