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How to Choose a Usability Testing Facility: A Checklist for Human Factors Teams

The right usability testing facility comes down to five things: observation setup, recording infrastructure, simulated-use configurability, recruitment integration, and participant logistics. Day rate matters less than teams think — a cheap room that costs you a re-fielded session day, or 30 hours of multi-vendor coordination, is the most expensive room in the city.

Here's the checklist we'd use to evaluate any facility, including ours.

1. Observation setup

The observation experience is where stakeholders form their conclusions, so it's worth scrutinizing first.

• One-way mirror, not just cameras. Remote video helps, but sponsors, regulators-in-training, and design engineers watching live through glass catch things a camera angle misses.
• A central observation suite serving multiple labs lets a team run parallel sessions without splitting observers across rooms — and parallel sessions are how 12-day summatives become 7-day summatives.
• Capacity: can it seat your whole team plus client observers comfortably for eight hours?

2. Recording and A/V

• Built-in multi-angle video and audio, with screen capture if your device has a display
• Picture-in-picture or synchronized feeds (hands + device + face) for root-cause analysis later
• Reliable file delivery the same day — you will need the footage for the HFE report
• Live streaming for remote observers, with stable bandwidth

Ask the uncomfortable question: what happens when the recording fails mid-session? A staffed facility has an answer; a rented conference room has an apology.

3. Simulated-use configurability

FDA expects test environments to represent actual use conditions. The facility should reconfigure to simulate:

• A home environment (furniture, lighting, ambient distraction) for home-use devices
• Clinical setups — exam table, hospital bed, med cart — for professional-use devices
• Adjustable lighting and noise where the use environment demands it (think 2 a.m. bedroom for an emergency-use device)

If every study runs in the same sterile conference room regardless of use environment, the environment isn't being tested — and a reviewer may notice.

4. Recruitment integration

This is the factor that most determines whether your study happens on schedule. Two models exist:

• Facility-only vendors: you bring participants from a separate recruiter, and coordinate screeners, scheduling, confirmations, no-shows, and honoraria across two companies.
• Integrated facility + recruitment: one vendor sources to your screener, schedules around lab availability, manages confirmations and floaters, and handles honoraria.

Teams routinely piece together 3–5 vendors for a single study, and the coordination overhead — 25–35 internal hours is typical — never appears in anyone's quote. It's still a cost. So is a 20% no-show rate with no floater plan, which can force a re-fielded day at full facility and travel cost.

5. Participant logistics

Unglamorous, decisive:

• Parking and access — clinicians fitting you in between shifts will not circle a block for parking
• Separate participant and observer paths, so blinding holds and participants don't meet the sponsor in the lobby
• On-site staff for reception, escorting, consent paperwork, and honoraria distribution
• Catering options for full-day studies

The questions to ask any facility

1. What's the day rate, and what does it include? ($1,500–$2,200/day is the typical purpose-built range; clarify A/V, staff, and setup fees.)
2. Can you run two sessions in parallel with shared observation?
3. How do you handle no-shows — do you schedule floaters?
4. Can you recruit to our screener, and what's your realistic timeline for our participant types?
5. How quickly do we receive recordings?
6. How far out are you booked? (4–6 weeks lead is standard when recruitment is involved.)

Frequently Asked Questions