The new kid on the block

Flickr: Lars Ploughmann Paula de Matos

User Experience in Science

My name is Paula de Matos

I live in Cambridge, UK

I am an FreelanceUser

Experience Analyst

I tweet @Paula_deMatos

I am South African & Portuguese

I specialise in the application of UX in complex scientific domains

Flickr: Stefson

Peter Morville: UX Honecomb

What is User Experience (UX)

Where does UX come from?

Dan Schaffer

A good UX example: The whole package

What happens when you don’t consider UX?

Flickr: Adam Frame

UX in complex environments

• highly inter-connected• has depth (big picture and high level of

granularity important)• high volume, big scale• unfamiliar since it is a ‘niche’/’expert’ field

(niche vocab.)• needing security/ privacy/ authentication• real time-critical

Complex environments have data that is/ may be…

People in complex environments…• May have geographically separated team• People (always complex but added

complications may be…)• Not aware of UX (“fluffy stuff”)• Do not know who users are/ not interested

in the user• Think they know their user but are making

assumptions

Bioinformatics research/services is a complex environment

EMBL-EBI EuroHub for Bioinformatics in Hinxton

• Part of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory

• International, non-profit research institute

• 540 people work at EMBL-EBI, 48 nations represented

• Average age: 37 yrs

• At the heart of modern biology research• Science of storing, retrieving and

analysing biological information• An interdisciplinary science involving

biologists, biochemists, computer scientists and mathematicians

What is bioinformatics?

L-O-A-D-S of data

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UX and Bioinformatics: Enzyme Portal

I can’t find anything?

We have over 10 databases dealing with enzymes

Data is loosely linked and mismatched

I can’t see anything?

Enzyme Portal: the workflow

• Understand stakeholders and requirements• UCD buy-in strategy • Incentives?

Love thy stakeholders

Personaes used to mitigate ‘self-as-user’ outlook

• Preferably in their own lab• Observe and understand context • Ask questions, learn and validate

We interviewed users

We modeled their user stories

Created using yWorks yEd Graph Editor

What is important to you?

What do you want?

What happens if you ask?

Establish priorities and Information Architecture

Stimulates discussion esp. dot vote to get consensus

Engaging IA ‘head scratcher’ for target users (experts)Canvas Sort:

Canvas Sort Result #1: Relative priorities of data items and actions

Result #2: Model of the information architecture for the portal

Sketching

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

Wireframes provided a visual specification

Quick and easy prototyping

• Things going wrong on release day

• Data that does not exist• Stakeholder posturing

Be flexible – it’s complex, things will go wrong!

Challenges with UX in Science

Sweet spot?

Jakob Nielsen, Usability Engineering 1993

Diverse users

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

We don’t sell stuff…

Flickr: Kristian Niemi

Finding the people can be difficult

Complexities of policy and funding

Flickr: 401 (K) 2013

Managing data

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Get in touch

Paula de MatosEmail:

paula.dematos@gmail.comLinkedIn: pauladematosTwitter: @Paula_deMatos

Useful referencesComplex UX• Chilana, P.K. et al (2010) Understanding usability practices in

complex domains. CHI 2010 Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2337-2346

Personae• 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

• William Hudson (2009) Reduced Empathizing Skills Increase Challenges for User-Centered Design CHI 2009 April 3–9, Boston, MA, USA

Gamestorming• Gray D, Brown S, Macanufo J (2010) Game storming: A Playbook

for Innovators, Rulebreakers and Changemakers. California: O’Reilly Media.

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Recent papers: UX and Bioinformatics (open access)

EMBL-EBI staff, Genome Campus, Cambridge

Thanks for listening!

Questions?