Our state-of-the-art facilities are located in Silver Spring, MD, just one block north of the Washington, DC Beltway. Our location in the metropolitan Baltimore-Washington area offers ready access to a number of major universities and libraries, government research labs, and to all three of DC's major airports.	Need Directions & Hotel Info? UserWorks is easy to reach. See directions for how to find us, and suggestions for local hotels.
We have approximately 3600 square feet of office space, including our usability laboratory, focus group room, software accessibility test bed, and digital video editing workstation. These facilities are available for rent, with or without our services. Contact us for current pricing.	Need Facilities in the DC Area? Our facilities are available for rent, with or without our services. Contact Us for availability and pricing.

A state-of-the-art usability testing laboratory and a well-instrumented focus group facility, which can also be used for usability tests, are available in our Silver Spring office.  Each of our in-house facilities consists of a participant observation room (approximately 13' x 12' for the lab and 19' x 14' for the focus group facility) and an adjacent Control Room (approximately 14' x 8' for the lab and 14' x 9' for the focus group facility).  Clients can observe the proceedings from the Control Room or from a video feed to a nearby Conference Room.  Both the lab and the focus group facilities offer the following capabilities: One-way viewing of individual participants or small groups conducting workplace tasks Two-way communication with participants by intercom or telephone (i.e. emulated help desk support) Multi-camera, split-screen video recording Scan conversion to video record the participant's computer screen Audio recording of participant with voice-over commentary by an investigator Observational data logging and data management software Machine-readable time coding of video tapes and data logs Video editing to create "highlights" tapes Telecommunication interconnections with a variety of telephone, local area-network, and broadband network services Secure facilities and procedures for dealing with proprietary client equipment and data

There are several options for accommodating observers other than the Test Team, e.g., the system developers of the product being tested or client personnel who wish to monitor the proceedings without being directly involved in the testing.  First, the Control Rooms provide ample space for such casual observers. Second, a video feed from the Control Room, typically the output of the video mixer, which is input to the VCR, can be displayed in the Executive Viewing Area.  Third, a similar video feed displays the proceedings in a near-by conference Room so that client personnel can view and discuss the ongoing testing without being disruptive. To-date, these facilities have been utilized for testing a variety of applications.  The products evaluated have included desktop video teleconferencing systems (running over both the LAN and ISDN lines, with up to five workstations in conference), interactive TV, financial management software, a tourist information kiosk, a biomedical device for detecting lapses in alertness, online services and various web-based software applications. UserWorks can provide related services as needed, ranging from comprehensive, end-to-end testing or support in any aspects of test planning, equipment configuration, test administration, data analysis, design change or product selection recommendations, and cost-benefit analysis of design or product alternatives.  We work closely with clients and encourage client personnel to participate in these evaluations to the maximal extent possible. Software Accessibility Test-bed UserWorks maintains an in-house lab for evaluating software accessibility compliance and assistive devices. With regard to web accessibility, this lab includes a range of computer platforms, operating systems, web browsers, and syntactic analysis tools. Assistive devices include screen readers (e.g., JAWS), voice input devices (e.g., Dragon Natually Speaking), and Braille readers." Digital Video Editing System UserWorks also maintains an in-house digital video editing system for use in creating "highlights tapes" from usability tests and focus groups, training videos, and multi-media presentation materials. Digital video editing offers many advantages as compared to analog, including speed, flexibility, ease of use, ease of invoking special effects, ability to output to CD or publish to the web, and with no degradation of imagery when making copies.