Presentation in the 6th International Conference on Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics #AHFE2015 in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA on July 31, 2015. The research project was conducted in a collaboration between the Software and Knowledge Engineering Research Group (HCI Lab) and the Bioinformatics Group (BioIRG Lab)
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Human Factors in the Design and Evaluation of Bioinformatics Tools
1. Human Factors in the Design and Evaluation of
Bioinformatics Tools
Naelah Al-Ageel, Areej Al-Wabil, Ghada Badr, Noura AlOmar
College of Computer and Information Sciences
King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
aalwabil@ksu.edu.sa
2. Bioinformatics domain
Growing complexity of biological data
Interdependencies in biological data
Revolutionary domain
Large volumes of biological data sets
Less structured data
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3. Properties of Bioinformatics Systems
Bioinformatics systems:
• Integrate data from many sources
• Present data in different forms
• Process a variety of file formats
• Visualize biological data at molecular and
genome levels
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5. Contribution
Defining a criteria for building usable bioinformatics
systems that takes into consideration:
1. Computational metrics
2. Cognitive and perceptual abilities of the users
Conducting a heuristic evaluation on bioinformatics
systems
Conducting a comparative evaluation of many
Usability Evaluation Methods
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6. Usability Inspection of Existing
Bioinformatics Online Motif Discovery
and Localization Tools
“Heuristics Evaluation Study”
10. Effectiveness of Heuristics Evaluation in
Bioinformatics
The heuristic evaluation was shown to be an effective usability
evaluation method for the usability assessment of
bioinformatics tools and identifying usability issues that impact
the users’ satisfaction.
It doesn't produce fixes to the usability problems.
Easy to generate design recommendations according to experts’
suggestions after interacting with the systems or being
introduced to the tools in interactive sessions.
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11. The Need for Applying Usability in
Bioinformatics Tools
Improved interaction design - decreasing processing time
Easing the transition to new versions of existing systems
Improving human performance and productivity
Ensuring better quality of work
Minimizing the impact of user error in data entry
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13. Cognitive Perspective Computational Perspective
• Time to Complete a Task
• Number of Achromous
• Number of Feedback Functions per site
• Home Page Reference
• Layout Complexity
• Overall Density
• Number of Font Types used
• Number of Ways to Perform a Task
• Percent of Favorable User Comments
• User Subjective Rating
• Ease of use
• Overall satisfaction
• Number of Mouse Clicks to complete
the task
• Completion rate efficacy
• Number of commands used
• Error Frequency
• Task Effectiveness
• Task Completion
• Broken Link Count
• Rate of Error Messages
• Number of reusable components
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15. Aims of the Usability Evaluation Methods
Investigate the usability of Bioinformatics tools by systematically
analyzing user perception and behavior acquired in task-based
usability sessions.
Perform this experimental evaluation study based on the
interaction mode(s) of the proposed system.
Improve the quality of bioinformatics tools by conducting a
comparative review of the expected outcomes.
Check whether the system meets functional and non-functional
requirements.
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16. Examples of the Usability Evaluation Methods
Applied in Bioinformatics Tools
# Type of UEM Features
1 Morae Study
Audio, screen recorder, and usability
analysis system in Morae manager
2 Eye Tracking Study
Tracking eyes movements, usability
analysis system in Tobii SW
3 Observation Interaction with the system
4 Direct questions Opinions and recommendations
5 Post-test questionnaire Positive and negative feedback
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17. Conclusion
• Designing usable bioinformatics systems will
help in:
– Reducing the cognitive overload of the users
– Increasing the responsiveness of these systems
– Obtaining satisfactory user experiences
18. Thank You!
Human Factors in the Design and Evaluation of
Bioinformatics Tools
Naelah Al-Ageel, Areej Al-Wabil, Ghada Badr, Noura AlOmar
College of Computer and Information Sciences
King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
aalwabil@ksu.edu.sa