Making Bioinformatics Tools User-centric

Bioinformatics tools and software frameworks are becoming increasingly important in the analysis of genomic and biological data. To understand how to construct and design effective tools for Biologists, both their interaction behavior and task flow need to be captured. In this presentation, we will begin by modeling the biologist, including experiences with current tools, and demonstrate how this information can be transformed into UI design patterns.

We will then integrate these results into an iterative pattern-oriented design process, inspired by traditional user-centered design methodologies. We will demonstrate how the complicity of task models and patterns can lead to user-centric bioinformatics tools, with the objective of making them more usable. An empirical study carried out with the NCBI (National Center for Biotechnology Information) site will be discussed, including future avenues of integrating task- and process-based approaches.