Testronic & Player Research Announce Exclusive Collaboration for Video Games User Experience Testing

BURBANK, Calif. - March 27, 2013 - PRLog -- MEETING ROOM 506 at GDC

(Burbank, CA/London, UK) Testronic Labs, the global leader in quality assurance services for games, film and television, and media, has announced an exclusive collaboration agreement with Player Research, a User Experience (UX) company led by Graham McAllister. Player Research, a highly regarded UX studio and video games play testing company headquartered in Brighton, UK, is at the very forefront of helping games companies and other entertainment entities analytically and scientifically understand the elements and motivation of player behavior. The collaboration will put state-of-the-art UX testing in the hands of Testronic's global roster of clients. McAllister, Player Research staffers and the Testronic team are on hand at GDC 2013 to provide private demonstrations of the technology.

Testronic will be opening the doors to a User Experience Lab at its US headquarters, located in Burbank, California, during Q2, 2013. McAllister is playing a key role in designing the new lab, which features the unique combination of biometrics, subject qualifications, and multi-pronged interviews that has proven highly successful for Player Research. The UX Lab will benefit from, and interact with, the powerful end-to-end testing ecosystem Testronic has built out at its First Street facility.  

McAllister, a recognized leader in the User Experience community, launched Player Research in Brighton, UK. A respected academic, he earned his PhD in Computer Graphics from the University of Ulster (Ireland). McAllister is a senior lecturer at the University of Sussex on the Human-Computer Interaction and a journalist, writing for the influential games publication, Edge. His motivation in this highly-technical, but very human area of analysis has always been, "...to make better games. It comes down to a scientific approach in making informed choices in the game development process. We have designed the biometrics that track the physical aspect of User Experience, but over the years we've discovered that those tests lack meaning without the corresponding questions and an analysis of the combined information. The combination of the subjective and biometric produces powerful insights."

Testronic is focused on keeping their clients, which include leading games developers and publishers, well ahead of the changing demands of deliverables and consumer behavior. The concept of User Experience is evolving rapidly for video games and entertainment product, and Testronic wanted to go past the horizon of current thought, and establish new benchmarks for quality in this arena.  

Johan Craeybeckx, Chief Technology Officer of Testronic, comments, "We are delighted to be working closely with Graham and his team, and look forward to meeting with our clients at GDC to demonstrate the work we are engaged in together. The Player Research approach goes far beyond much of what is being called User Experience today and we see UX as a crucial component of games testing. At Testronic, we have been thinking about this area for a long time, and we see the collaboration and the launch of our new lab in Burbank as a huge benefit to our games customers."

McAllister concluded, "It's exciting to work with my colleagues at Testronic, we share a focus on providing our clients with the latest but most thoughtful approach to making sure their products are at the forefront of the marketplace."

About Testronic Labs
Testronic's high standards have been protecting clients and safeguarding the consumer experience since 1998. As the leading global provider of quality assurance, compliance, and localization services for a notable array of industries; including media, entertainment, games, education, e-commerce and consumer electronics, Testronic Labs ensures efficient and secure delivery of the highest quality consumer deliverables. Based in Burbank, CA; London, UK; Diepenbeek, Belgium; Warsaw, Poland; and Tokyo, Japan, Testronic Labs offers an unparalleled history of next-generation innovation and service excellence across the entire digital media industry. For further information, visit www.TestronicLabs.com.

About Player Research
Player Research is a user research studio that provides insights into users and digital experiences. Player Research works with video game studios at all stages of game development, from concept through to release, helping to provide evidence to support design decisions and deliver the best possible user experiences. Player Research is based in Brighton, UK. http://www.playerresearch.com/