AMERITECHS USABILITY LABORATORY - FROM PROTOTYPE TO FINAL DESIGN

Ameritech's human factors organization was established in 1989, and fr om the beginning its charter assumed that user-centred design, iterati ve usability testing, and beginning-to-end involvement in the product- system development cycle would be central to its work. This article de scribes the laboratory resources that were created to support the orga nization. It identifies the needs of the human factors professionals u sing the lab that served as requirements for the design of the resourc es, and the interim lab that was built where implementation approaches to some of these requirements were tested and refined. It describes t he final laboratory, as well as three different kinds of portable labs . The laboratory is a critical corporate resource, and while it contin ues to evolve as it is used, it has already demonstrated its value to the human factors organization it serves.