Designing with the user in mind: how UCD can work for bioinformatics

Jennifer A. Cham

User Experience Analyst

European Bioinformatics Institute, Cambridge

User-Centred Design = an approach that grounds the

design process in information about the people who will use

the product/service/tool

We need to !publish more! !

So we did…

2012

2013

My mission today…

Is it worth thinking about who you are designing for?

Fact: bioinformatics resources suffer from usability problems

Javahery et al. (2004) Beyond Power: making bioinformatics tools user-centered. Commun ACM 47:59-62 Bolchini et al. (2009) Better bioinformatics through usability analysis. Bioinformatics 25:406-412

Challenges: Constraints vs. pleasing the user

‘Dry’ and ‘wet’ scientists use the same software

Jakob Nielsen, Usability Engineering 1993

We don’t sell stuff…

Finding the people

Let’s have a go…

1.  Characterise users & their requirements

2.  Design suitable interactions

3.  Test using prototypes using real life scenarios

Example: Enzyme Portal

Our UCD lifecycle – to design a ‘user-friendly’ portal

User profiles/ personae for empathy

≠

Fact: you are not the user

A persona can mitigate ‘self-as-user’ outlook

Empathising-Systemising Theory

Baron-Cohen, S. et al (2003) The systemizing quotient: an investigation of adults with Asperger syndrome or high-functioning autism, and normal sex differences. Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London 358: 361-74

Designed by Francis Rowland

Created using yWorks yEd Graph Editor

User stories mapped / modelled

Workshops to explore users’ needs & priorities

Where shall we go on

holiday this year…?

I wonder what I could make for

dinner tonight…

‘Gamestorming’ activities to capture ideas

Gray et al. (2010) Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers, and Changemakers

‘Canvas sort’ activity

Output goes into the interface designs

Evaluating prototypes: see them in action

Usability testing on paper

(‘Paper

prototyping’)

Result: Visual Specifications

Created using Balsamiq Mockups (http://www.balsamiq.com/products/mockups)

So what did we learn?

•  Specific things about representing enzyme data

e.g.

•  Species-specific 3D model

•  General things

e.g.

•  Embedded not hyperlinked

Usability determines how bioinformatics is perceived !

!“there are scientists … who publish work but do not want to

go to the trouble of making the resources easy to use. Wouldn’t it seem that evidence of usability…should be

prerequisite to publishing a paper about such a resource?”

Our duty à return on public investment in research

Veretnik et al. (2008) Computational biology resources lack persistence and usability. PLoS CB 4:2-4

UCD wins…

Evidence from users

Communicate what users want

Decision-making easier

Developers get feedback

Team-work ethos

Culture Change: UX interest group – EBI interfaces community

http://ebiinterfaces.wordpress.com/

Acknowledgements

www.ebi.ac.uk/enzymeportal

Sketchnote of this talk

www.jennycham.co.uk

Sketched by Francis Rowland

http://www.flickr.com/photos/97823772@N02/9367537145/

Questions?