Ergonomics can also be analysed more professional in a usability laboratory. A usability test laboratory can have different kind of equipment – maybe not all:
User room with:
- Kitchen equipment
- Measurement equipment to measure the test person strength as torque, pull and push forces, finger strength etc.
- Video camera
- Microphone
- Etc.
Observation room with:
- Spy mirror to the user room
- Sound and video mixer
- Computer with time logging system
- Etc.
The test is designed in an interview structure including measurement of personal forces and test of different packaging designs. Test persons are under normal conditions tested as individual persons and not in groups. But group interviews are also possible. You can decide to use test persons from your whole target group. But in many cases it will be much more efficient to select persons in the critical area i.e. elderly, children etc.