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| About LUTE |
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LUTE's mission is described below. Also available is a list of the Hardware and Software available in LUTE as well as the lab's floor plan. The Laboratory for Usability Testing and Evaluation (LUTE) is committed to:
Research Mission The interdisciplinary team of LUTE faculty, students, and research affiliates is building a scientific infrastructure for the field of usability engineering and user-centered design. To date, little scientific research has been done to support claims of validity and reliability of commonly used usability and user-centered design methods. Likewise, while industry has been adopting user-centered design practices, there still remain many open questions regarding the best way to integrate UCD into the larger product design and development process. Thus, there is a need to establish and promote best practices in usability and user-centered design, which requires empirical study in order to analyze and improve current practices. As part of our research mission, LUTE faculty support graduate student M.S. theses and Ph.D. dissertations on topics related to empirical validation of usability methods, improvements to usability engineering and user-centered design methods and processes, and other related topics. LUTE faculty work with other researchers at the University of Washington in order to design and apply new and improved methods for usability evaluation and interaction design processes. Additionally, LUTE welcomes visiting researchers from the US and from abroad who do work in this area. Education Mission LUTE is dedicated to providing state-of-the-art facilities for University of Washington students who are studying usability engineering, user interface/interaction/experience design, and human-computer interaction. Through funding from the UW Student Technology Fee, LUTE is able to reserve 50% of its time for supporting individual student projects, class projects, and student-initiated pilot studies. LUTE also provides educational tours and short workshops on usability evaluation methods for graduate and undergraduate classes at UW that focus on human-computer interaction, human factors, and user-centered design. As part of our commitment to promoting engineering education to the larger community, LUTE provides educational tours and activities for K-12 students in the Seattle-Metro area by participating in the annual UW College of Engineering Open House and other educational outreach events. Given that many LUTE members are also experienced university educators, LUTE is looking to expand its educational mission by providing college-level learning modules on topics related to usability and user-centered design methods.
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