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Services
Dray & Associates provides a broad spectrum of human factors and user-centered design consultation to help our clients make sure their products and systems succeed. Clients differ and their needs differ, so we tailor our approach to these needs. We are not "purists" committed to any one methodology, but adapt the method to suit our clients' needs and circumstances.
Services we offer
We provide services in the following areas:
- Usability evaluation of hardware, software, and websites
- Contextual or naturalistic usability studies and field trials
- Ethnographic user and usage studies
- International studies of all types
- Expert interface evaluation
- Design consultation
- Courses on user-centered design, structured observation, and usability
- Customized training, tailored to client's current projects
A Few Examples of Past Projects and Project Types
Contextual User and Usage Studies, Naturalistic Field Usability
- International persona study on mobile phone usage patterns
- International field study to identify needs and opportunities for mobile phone e-wallet services
- Field research in the US and internationally on mobile devices in education, as part of 2-year study on innovation in educational technology
- International field study in the developing world on mobile personal information access
- Field study in Japan on mobile Web access
- Field study of medical coding and billing practices
- Field study to evaluate opportunities for multi-touch technology in different contexts
- Several field studies to support development of innovative technologies (hardware and software) for the developing the world, in Russia, China, and India
- Several contextual field studies of system administration processes
- Field study of work practices of IT security professionals
- Longitudinal study of novel online payment systems
- In-home studies of family organization and coordination practices
- US and international field studies to support development of personalized online advertising
- Several US and international field studies of full-service Internet portals
- Contextual inquiry and field usability evaluation of web-based support for online advertising sales
- Nationwide research on the college planning experience for web-based college planning tool
- Several international ethnographic studies on printer use in homes and small office/home office settings
- International in-home study on web-based technical support for PC users
- International field study on business use of geographic data
- Field research on use of smart card technology in French health system
- Three iterations of large-scale longitudinal pre-release field trials of Microsoft Tablet PC
Usability Evaluation
- International usability evaluation of OS setup process
- Usability study of functional integration within suite of 7 business applications, involving testing with 32 small business managers and VARs
- User-centered design and iterative usability evaluation of ID-badge printer and integrated personnel data system
- Usability evaluation of mobile phone prototype
- Evaluation of Web-based technical support tool for IT professionals
- Iterative evaluations of numerous retail e-commerce sites
- International usability evaluation of multi-function printers
- Evaluation of integrated identification/personnel database system
- 3 iterations of evaluations for a real estate website
- Redesign and usability evaluation of interface for new family of bar code printers
- Evaluations of environmental and security control systems for large buildings (e.g., hospitals, factories, airport terminals)
- Evaluation of automobile controls
- Printer usability testing with 120 users in 8 countries in Europe and Asia
- User-centered design of a digital camera interface (hardware, interaction design, and desktop software driver), including testing in US and Europe
- Usability evaluation of an online financial planning tool
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