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)

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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4. Usability
considerations
Responsiveness
Learnability
Accessibility
Understandability
Ease to useEffectiveness
Efficiency
Scalability
Platform
independency
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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”

7. First Impression
Interacting with Results & Visualization
Query Results Forms
Ideal Heuristics
Bioinformatics
Usability
Cross-domain
Target Experts
Sequential Motif
Localization
“FIMO Tool”
Sequential Motif
Discovery
“MEME Tool”
Structural Motif
Localization
“RNAMST”
Structural Motif
Discovery
“RNAPromo”
Bioinformatics Tools Evaluation Surveys
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8. Study Results
Functional
Recommendations
User Interface
Recommendations
Usability Issues/Problems Good Usability Features
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9. Usability Issues
Minor
“1”
Serious
“2”
Major
“3”
Critical
“4”
Failure
“5”
Total
MEME 16 7 4 0 1 28
FIMO 11 14 4 2 5 36
RNAMST 10 9 11 1 3 34
RNAPromo 19 6 2 2 0 29
Total 56 36 21 5 8 126
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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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12. Usability Goals and Metrics

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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14. Usability Evaluation Methods
(UEMs)

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