Usability

Be part of our user-centered design process

At The MathWorks, our goal is to accelerate the pace of discovery, innovation, development, and learning in engineering and science. Understanding our users' needs is an essential part of helping us reach this goal.

How Do You Benefit?

There are many reasons for you to participate.

• Meet with developers and make contacts
• See your wish list features incorporated into future products
• Get your product questions answered and your bugs fixed
• Preview new products before anyone else
• Get $100 for participating in a test

We are interested in learning about your work and hearing your feedback about MathWorks products and Web sites. We talk to MATLAB and Simulink users at every step in our development cycle, for just about every product. So at any time, there are several different ways you can choose to help us improve our products and Web sites for your use.

Paper Prototypes

Before committing designs to code, we mock them up in paper and test them with users (you!) to make sure they are viable. This is a fun, free-form type of testing where you have a chance to influence designs in their early stages.

Usability Tests

Once we've begun coding, we continue testing to ensure the designs are on the right track. Often our tests are done in our lab. We ask users (you!) to work on specific tasks in one room, while the developers observe, either in the same room or another room via video. We try to simulate the "real world" so we can find design flaws before the product appears on your desktop.

Customer Visits

We often talk to users (you!) about specific experiences you've had using our products. These interviews provide valuable background data and enable us to better understand your needs and requirements. Interviews can take place over the phone or in person. We can also use Web conferencing technology to share applications so you can show us specific examples.

Surveys

When we need to get data from a lot of users quickly, we use surveys. Typically the surveys are Web-based. We give you a URL and you take the survey at your leisure. We tabulate the results and use them in our design process.

Sign Up Now to Participate