Informatics
Figure 6
Storyboarding is one example of a UX technique employed to understand R&D user
needs. Image copyright: Novartis
however, focus on the tasks and context of scien- tific work. This emphasis vastly improves uptake, and accordingly return on investment, over tradi- tional ‘systems-analysis’ and off-the-shelf procure- ment approaches, which follow a more linear pro- cess of gathering requirements and carrying out acceptance testing.
Six of the 16 member companies in the Pistoia Alliance UXLS project team are research technolo- gy vendors. They showcase the potential of UX design to support scientific software suppliers, with one company, for example, making “usability an integral part of our development and software selection processes”.
What do UX designers do? Effective UX design stems from the judicious engagement of skilled UX practitioners, melding their work with the rest of the R&D operation. It requires thorough insights into the behaviours and needs of its target users. The ‘central dogma’ of UX design is cyclical iterations of discovery, design and testing (Figure 4). UX design is an approach to be embraced by everyone in product/service design teams – not just a series of tasks to be carried out
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by team of ‘UX wizards’. Experts from different fields must share an approach to solving design problems that prioritises the users’ needs. This results in greater buy in, which leads to higher sat- isfaction with the end result (example in Figure 5).
Like science, UX is a way of thinking UX researchers and designers must fully under- stand the challenges faced by scientists. For exam- ple, they need to insight into: the barriers to exploring new scientific ideas; problems in the physical environment where a device is used; stop- and-start disruption due to lack of integration in tools; data and workflows; and myriad issues with sharing their work with others.
UX research helps inform the right design deci- sions early, enabling software coders to create use- ful products and features, and avoiding costly reworking. During the design phase (see Figure 4, ‘design’ and a real example in Figure 6), the new product is envisioned and measures of success are planned (more on metrics later). By using hypoth- esis statements, requirements can be turned into tests for determining if the product has been suc- cessful24. For example:
Drug Discovery World Summer 2017
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