Don’t take this too personally, but I love our users. You guys work on interesting applications in every imaginable industry. By virtue of hearing what someone is doing with our products, I get to engineer vicariously on more projects than I might otherwise. Which is why I love meeting and talking to users.

As an engineer in the Boston area, I often meet a lot of scientists, engineers, or otherwise technical people. And everyone seems to have an opinion (good or bad) about MATLAB. That is a pretty awesome thing: lots of smart people with opinions that care about MATLAB.

By giving us the opportunity to learn how you use MATLAB, you help us better understand your workflows and any pains you may have using the product. This is called usability, and we enjoy having the opportunity to test, measure, and improve MATLAB. Oh, and it just so happens that we offer a nice stipend for such people to come down to our studios for an hour or two and try out the new stuff we’re working on. But the bigger reward for those who help us through testing is a better, more useful product – we apply your feedback to make MATLAB better.

If you’re interested in being part of a usability test, or would like to find more information about our user-centered design process, checkout this web page.