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Getting into Context Early: A comparative study of laboratory and in-context user testing of low fidelity information appliance prototypes

This paper highlights the importance of testing product prototypes in-context rather than just in laboratory or office environments to gain additional valuable insights into key design features at the early stages of the product design process. When developing information appliances, such as mobiles phones, designers want to bring together the physical and digital elements of a new product concept early in the design process to gain feedback from target users. However the prototyping methods used to create these product prototypes have so far only been evaluated using laboratory based testing approaches, partly due to the methodologies employed. This paper describes a comparative study between a laboratory and in-context user test of early information appliance prototypes using three different prototyping methodologies. The results of the study show that in-context and laboratory testing uncover different usability problems. In-context testing uncovered problems with both the physical inputs and the interaction between physical and digital elements of the prototypes that were not discovered in the laboratory environment.

The article was published in the ‘Design Journal’ a peer-reviewed journal published by Berg. The research described in this paper has resulted in the approach being applied in a commercial context within the User Insight Laboratory at the National Centre for Product Design and Development Research (PDR).