Featured Project
Pathway Studio
This award-winning tool enables the creation of interactive visualizations of data that model the impact of gene expressions and protein interactions, allowing for a better understanding of diseases and streamlining the drug discovery process.
Goals
- Create a web-based application and more away from the classic desktop application
- Add new research modules for precision oncology and personalized medicine
- Better compete with new products on the market
- Address known issues while improving usability and accessibility
- Simplify the very complex navigation
Team and Responsibilities
Team Makeup
- Product Manager
- Life Sciences Professional Services Consultant
- 3 Software Engineers
- Senior User Experience Specialist (me)
- 1 Visual Designer
My Responsibilities
- Planned and managed a global user research and beta testing program
- Conducted an opportunity assessment of competitive solutions
- Facilitated ideation and visualization sessions with drug and disease researchers
- Redesigned the desktop platform for the web while increasing simplicity, usability, and accessibility
Card Sort
Diary Study
Data Visualization
Accessibility
User Research
Interaction Design
Challenges
Reluctant to Change
While loved by long-time desktop users, Pathway Studio struggled to adopt new users as it transitioned into a web-based platform. Trial accounts were being abandoned and few users went on to purchase licenses.
To solve this, I needed to understand global customer segments as well as Elsevier’s business challenges presented by newer competitors to raise the bar for this web-based bioresearch platform.
Desktop to Web
Elsevier’s classic desktop application was a stable of research labs across the globe, but they knew they needed to transition the application to the web while making the the notoriously complex interface easier to use.
Discovery
User Research
Managed a globally-scoped discovery with pharmaceutic, agriculture, and government customers across the world that included interviews, contextual inquiries, and a card sort with existing desktop users, and a diary study with the web beta users.
Competitive Analysis
I conducted a competitive analysis of 3 popular competitors, identifying gaps in our current offerings, which were prioritized for the new web-based product.
Collaborative Design
I facilitated remote and in-person collaborative design sessions with biologists, drug researchers, and other subject matter experts create an updated visual language for how biological pathways are displayed.
Diary Study
For the diary study, I set up a Google virtual telephone number that participants could call and leave diary entries as voicemail, which were automatically transcribed.
Card sort dendrogram for the application’s navigation structure.
Shape and pattern alternatives to colorblind individuals.
Design
Added Efficiencies
Senior leadership originally envisioned creating a one-to-one recreation of the desktop application on the web. After presenting research findings that highlighted struggles that users faced, along with making the case for taking advantage of the full features of modern web development frameworks, I was given the approval to do a much more thorough redesign.
The design also provided simple-to-use wizards (that allowed for advanced controls when needed) for the most common, but complex queries.
The redesign included a Target Protein Dashboard to help drug researchers more quickly identify the biological origin of a disease and the potential targets for intervention.
“I worked with David as Product Manager where he delivered exceptional UI designs on new product initiatives. He quickly understood the user’s complex workflow and created interactive UI designs that were adopted in new product features.
David generated exceptional UI prototypes that were well received by customers in the ideation phase of product development.
David is a very creative team player who is able to work collaboratively in a matrix environment. I will highly recommend David to any team looking for exceptional talent.”
Project Outcomes
Conversion
Trial-to-license conversion rates nearly tripled in the months after the new release.
Streamlined Workflows
Average of 60% reduction in steps required to complete key activities.
Accessibility
Increased accessibility, making the product competitive for government contracts.
Award-Winning
2015 CODIE Award winner for Best Science and Technology Information System
