Using the Lab

With a never-ending variety of devices and browsers being used around the world, it’s more important than ever to test our projects on the platforms and devices our customers use.

The Device Lab provides us with the tools and technology necessary to design, develop, test, and improve products and services while troubleshooting and supporting existing products and services.

We’ve captured everything we think you’ll need to effectively use the lab here on this website. Whether its familiarizing yourself with the Device Inventory, leveraging testing tools and emulators, or diving into specific topics in the Knowledge Base, we’ve got it covered.

Lab Basics Contents Borrowing Accounts Testing

Lab Basics

Anyone within IT may use the Device Lab as needed, when its available. Additionally, should you need use of the Lab for an extended period of time, you may reserve the space.

Reserving the Lab

Indicate the time period that you’d like to reserve for use of the lab on the “Reservations” clipboard located on the lab desk.
Verify the availability of needed devices from the “Borrowing” clipboard located on the lab desk. You may need to recover a borrowed device for critical activities.
Return the lab to the state that you found it in when you began your session.
Indicate what parts of the lab you used at the end of your session on the “Reservations” clipboard.

Lab Contents

Every year we evaluate changes in consumer technology and add new devices to the lab to fill in representative gaps. So far, the device lab contains:

SMARTPHONES

TABLETS

LAPTOPS

DESKTOPS

VIRTUAL MACHINES

GADGETS

E-READERS

ACCESSORY

Borrowing

Some activities may require us to use devices away from the lab at our own desk, within meetings, or in the field. IT staff may borrow any of the devices contained in the Lab, providing some basic information to track your use.

Borrowing Devices

Indicate the specific devices you’d like to borrow (you can use the Device Inventory to help identify devices) and time period you would like to borrow them for on the “Borrowing” clipboard located on the lab desk.
Devices may need to be charged further if they were previously borrowed. You may borrow a corresponding charge cable for your device selections as well (color-coded by type).
Please try not to borrow devices any longer than 3 consecutive days.
Return devices to the state that you found them in when you first borrowed them.
Mark borrowed devices as “Returned” on the “Borrowing” clipboard. Indicate what activities you used the devices for on the “Borrowing” clipboard.

Accounts

As these devices represent a variety of platforms and app/services ecosystems, there are a variety of centralized accounts we use in configuring them.

A full listing of up-to-date account credentials can be found in the Ecosystem Credentials page.
Most of these accounts share the same username, email, or password, though this is not always the case.
None of these accounts contain any personally identifiable information, information about PCLS, or associated payment/billing options.

Testing

A selection of premium and free testing tools have been made available on the Mac desktop computer to satisfy primarily website and application testing.

Using the Lab

Lab Basics

Reserving the Lab

Lab Contents

Borrowing

Borrowing Devices

Accounts

Testing

Cross-Platform

Operating System Emulation

Page/Content Performance

Accessibility