Talk about: Simcenter Testlab Jury Testing
No one likes to talk more about a product than the Product Managers themselves. For this blog post, we asked Agnieszka Oltarzewska to introduce the Simcenter Testing Solutions for acoustic engineering that she takes care of: Simcenter Testlab Jury Testing.
What is Jury Testing?
Simcenter Testlab Jury Testing is a new software in the Simcenter portfolio that allows to collect subjective opinions on a sound of a product. Traditional processing and sound quality metrics give a broad and detailed image of the sound itself, but often do not explain why customers prefer one product over another. Simcenter Testlab Jury Testing has been designed to help companies do just that: listen and understand what customers want and modify the design of their product accordingly.
How does it work in practice?
In a listening test, a set of sounds is played to the jurors – it can be a comparison test, for instance, in which sounds are grouped into pairs. The jurors are then asked if they prefer sound A over sound B. For a more in-depth analysis, the sound can be broken down into certain attributes, like “strong”, “reliable” or “pleasant”. They are then asked to rate the sounds based on suggested categories.
The resulting preference rating or the most dominant attribute can be correlated with more objective measures, like the prototype variant used for the test, or the sound quality metrics, which are available in Simcenter Testlab.
Listening tests can be conducted locally anywhere in the world, with all jurors sitting together in one room. Alternatively, if sound experts and spread across continents, the system gives you the option to conduct decentralized, individual tests, and combine the results later on in the analysis phase.
Who benefits from jury tests?
In fact, any object which generates sounds can undergo such a test. The most typical use-cases are in the automotive industry, where silencers or any of the customer actuated sounds such as door slam, electric windows, etc. can be evaluated for their sportive or pleasant sound and become points of improvement. Beyond the automotive industry, it is certainly not uncommon to investigate the subjective sound preference for a cooling unit on trucks, coffee machines or lawn mowers, to give but few examples. Simcenter Testlab Jury Testing thus serves a wide range of applications and industries.
What makes it a special solution for acoustic testing?
Jury testing completes the product sound quality validation process, joining the broad portfolio of Simcenter Testlab Acoustic Testing. By correlating the objective measures, such as the sound quality metrics, with the subjective opinions of jurors it is much easier to create and enhance how a product sounds, which ultimately defines the brand by which customers can recognize it.
Why does the industry need solutions like Simcenter Testlab Jury Testing nowadays?
In a competitive market, more and more aspects are taken into consideration when buying a new product. With unlimited access to information, benchmarks and reviews, customers become naturally more demanding too – addressing their needs and requirements is what ultimately makes a brand successful.
Find out more about Simcenter Testlab Jury Testing by watching this video:
