Tutorial: As a UX practitioner working in complex environments you have to be flexible, since commonly-used user-centred design techniques may not work. In this tutorial, we provide insights into how you can approach UX problems in complex fields with confidence. With concrete examples from our experience of designing services for life scientists, we describe approaches you can use to characterise specialist users, and translate their requirements into successful designs. In the hands-on activity, you will experiment with our unique (and recently published) ‘canvas sort’ technique, for prioritising large numbers of data items and modelling their interactions. So if you work in UX in a complex environment - such as in scientific research, pharmaceuticals, engineering, technology, finance, or others - join us to learn how to survive when things get complicated!

1. Flickr: N A I T Paula de Matos & Jenny Cham
A Survival Guide for Complex UX

2. My name is Paula de Matos
I live in Cambridge
I am an Independent
UX Analyst
I tweet @Paula_deMatos
I am South African &
Portuguese
I am an agile evangelist

4. • 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
EMBL-EBI EuroHub for Bioinformatics in Hinxton

5. 2012
2013
Our recent papers: UX and Bioinformatics (open access)

6. Characteristics of a complex environment…
Flickr: Gigi C

7. • 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…

8. • 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
• Lack buy-in (“should we simplify stuff?”)
People in complex environments…

9. Rich client mapping
e.g. Geographical software
Multi-screen terminals for stock brokers
e.g. Thomson Reuters
Flickr: Travel Aficionado
Examples

10. Examples
Pharmaceutical Research and Development
e.g. identifying and validating new drug targets

11. • 10 minutes
• Identify a facilitator
• Chat in your team
• Other characteristics of a complex
environment we missed?
• Facilitator present back summary
Are you working in a complex environment?
What are the issues you face?

12. Bioinformatics research/services is a complex environment

13. • 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?

14. L-O-A-D-S of data
0
2000
4000
6000
8000
10000
12000
14000
16000
18000
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
TBofdata

15. ‘Dry’ and ‘wet’ scientists use the same software
Sweet spot?
Jakob Nielsen, Usability Engineering 1993

16. We don’t sell stuff…
Flickr: Kristian Niemi

17. Finding the people can be difficult

18. Our survival guide…

19. UCD lifecycle for a complex environment
Knife image from www.sxc.hu/photo/816000

20. Flickr: atkinson000
Survival tip #1: Understand the data and “big picture”
• Get interested
• Learn the basics yourself
• Make a new friend/s

21. Survival tip #2: Love thy stakeholders
• Understand
• UCD stakeholder champions
• UX buy-in strategy
• Incentives?

22. e.g.
• Literature research
• Competitor analysis
• Due diligence
Survival tip #3: Understanding the context

23. Survival tip #4: teach your development team the basics

24. ≠
Folks at UX London 2011
Survival tip #5: mitigate ‘self-as-user’ outlook (use refs)
Debra the in vivo
pharma R&D scientist
Fact: we are not the users

25. Example: persona

26. • Ask your buddy
• Find out a little about the expertise of the target user so you can get the
conversation flowing
• Ask when they don’t make any sense
• Record the interview
Survival tip #6: interview experts (pref. in their own lab)

27. Example: empathy mapping
Survival tip #7: Try gamestorming with geeks (aka experts)
Gray et al. (2010) Gamestorming: A
Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers,
and Changemakers
UX Cam 2011 talk:
Coming Out of Your Shell: Using UX
Workshops to Your Advantage in a Techie/
Scientific Setting
www.infoq.com/presentations/Coming-
Out-of-Your-Shell

28. Example: speedboat game

29. Survival tip #8: Establish your Information Architecture

30. What happens if you ask...
What is important to you?
What do you want?

31. Engaging IA ‘head scratcher’ for target users (experts)

32. Stimulates discussion esp. dot vote to get consensus

33. Scenario
• You have been offered a great job (at an agency) in Cape Town, South Africa
• You are not sure whether to accept the position
Your task (in teams)
• Find out if Cape Town is suitable for you/your family
Starting point
• You arrive at an information portal for Cape Town, what is the first thing you
need to see?
Tutorial: learn how to canvas sort
Flickr: Xevi V
Start activity"

34. The activity will end in -1:0

36. Synthesis and consolidation of artefacts

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

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

39. Result #3: Ideas to take into sketching

40. Result #4: Visual specs & can start thinking about relevant technologies/ constraints
Created using Balsamiq Mockups (http://www.balsamiq.com/products/mockups)

41. Survival tip #9: quick & easy prototyping keeps ideas flowing & dev costs low

42. Survival tip #10: Things are more likely to go wrong in a complex environment
• Data that does not exist
• Things going wrong on release day
• Stakeholder posturing

43. Our 10 UX tips for surviving in complex environments
Survival tip #1: Understand the data and “big picture”
Survival tip #2: Love thy stakeholders
Survival tip #3: Understanding the context
Survival tip #4: Teach your development (or agile) team the basics
Survival tip #5: Mitigate ‘self-as-user’ outlook (use refs)
Survival tip #6: Interview experts (pref. in their own lab)
Survival tip #7: Try gamestorming with geeks (aka experts)
Survival tip #8: Establish your Information Architecture
Survival tip #9: Quick prototyping keeps ideas flowing & dev costs low
Survival tip #10: Things are more likely to go wrong

44. Mapping survival tips to our case study
Knife image from www.sxc.hu/photo/816000
#1-4
#5
#6
#7-8
#9
#10

45. Jenny Cham
Email: jcham@ebi.ac.uk
LinkedIn: jennifer-cham
Twitter: @JenniferCham
Contact us
Paula de Matos
Email: paula.dematos@gmail.com
LinkedIn: pauladematos
Twitter: @Paula_deMatos

46. Useful references
Complex 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.

47. Coordinated by Francis Rowland
http://ebiinterfaces.wordpress.com/
UX interest group: EMBL- EBI interfaces

48. www.ebi.ac.uk/enzymeportal #

49. Questions?