Applying User Centred Design to Improve the Design of Genomic User Interfaces

The genomic domain is a complex data environment that has grown exponentially. Several tools have been developed to extract knowledge from this immense amount of data. Knowledge extraction processes depend to a large extent on how easy and intuitive are the user interfaces of the tools that are used by bioinformaticians. However, genomic tools have frequently ignored the design process of their User Interfaces. Consequently, they have important usability problems that complicates knowledge extraction. User Centered Design (UCD) is a design approach that can be used to improve the usability of genomic tools. It consists on putting the user and its real needs at the center of the design process. Improving the usability of these tools will facilitate knowledge extraction. This paper reports the application of the UCD approach to design a tool that improves knowledge extraction processes in a real world-use case. From a general perspective, UCD consists of “user research” and “design solutions”. The first one was carried out by conducting UCD techniques, including user interviews and task analysis. The second one was carried out by applying GenomIUm, a pattern-based method that guides the design process of genomic user interfaces. As a fundamental part in the UCD approach, the generated user interfaces were validated by expert bioinformaticians who reported that the complexity of extracting knowledge from genomic data was reduced. We conclude that UCD techniques together with GenomIUm can be a useful strategy to design more usable user interfaces in the genomic domain.

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