Procedures to Use Lab

Please read the instructions below before making a reservation.  A link to the reservation form is located at the end of the following instructions. 

All reservations must be made at least two weeks in advance of when the actual experiment will begin.  Any additional lab use requires a 24 hours’ notice.  During those two weeks the researcher(s) will meet with the lab manager for an entrance interview, schedule time for creating test configurations, and conduct pilot tests.

Please note: the lab manager will contact you within 24 hours to confirm your reservation. If you do not receive confirmation of your reservation, you may e-mail the lab manager directly.

During an entrance interview, the lab manager will consult with the researcher(s) prior to the experiments to make sure the researcher(s) understands the lab guidelines and capabilities. Also during that session, the lab manager will gain an understanding of the research study.

The researcher(s) must submit a signed copy (by his/her respective departments and Office of Research) of their Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval to the lab manager two full business days prior to the first experiment. The actual experiments conducted must comply with and pertain to the IRB submitted for a particular project.  If the study does not require an IRB (e..g, the study is for product development and will not be published), the researcher must provide the lab manager with a written statement about the protocol and scope of the study.

Note most of the lab equipment uses proprietary software (e.g., MORAE Manager, Tobii Studio, etc.), and analysis of the data must be done with the software in the lab.  However, researchers can export results to other packages once they have converted the information using the lab’s software. Video files generated by the lab’s proprietary software can be played using most media players outside the lab.  Unless researchers have access to the proprietary software outside the lab, they will need to schedule a follow up session(s) with the lab manager to analyze data. Analysis sessions must be scheduled at least 24 hours in advance.

Researchers will need to bring a mobile or external hard drive to download their data. Note that the data files are unusually large (from 20MB to over 1GB per exported participant file).