Bolchini Davide, Finkelstein Anthony, Perrone Vito, Nagl Sylvia
Department of Computer Science, University College London, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT, UK.
Bioinformatics. 2009 Feb 1;25(3):406-12. doi: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btn633. Epub 2008 Dec 9.
Improving the usability of bioinformatics resources enables researchers to find, interact with, share, compare and manipulate important information more effectively and efficiently. It thus enables researchers to gain improved insights into biological processes with the potential, ultimately, of yielding new scientific results. Usability 'barriers' can pose significant obstacles to a satisfactory user experience and force researchers to spend unnecessary time and effort to complete their tasks. The number of online biological databases available is growing and there is an expanding community of diverse users. In this context there is an increasing need to ensure the highest standards of usability.
Using 'state-of-the-art' usability evaluation methods, we have identified and characterized a sample of usability issues potentially relevant to web bioinformatics resources, in general. These specifically concern the design of the navigation and search mechanisms available to the user. The usability issues we have discovered in our substantial case studies are undermining the ability of users to find the information they need in their daily research activities. In addition to characterizing these issues, specific recommendations for improvements are proposed leveraging proven practices from web and usability engineering. The methods and approach we exemplify can be readily adopted by the developers of bioinformatics resources.
提高生物信息学资源的可用性能够使研究人员更有效且高效地查找、交互、共享、比较和处理重要信息。这进而使研究人员能够更深入地洞察生物过程，最终有可能产生新的科学成果。可用性“障碍”可能会给令人满意的用户体验带来重大阻碍，并迫使研究人员花费不必要的时间和精力来完成任务。在线生物数据库的数量在不断增加，用户群体也日益多样化。在此背景下，确保最高标准的可用性变得愈发重要。
通过使用“最先进的”可用性评估方法，我们识别并描述了一系列一般而言可能与网络生物信息学资源相关的可用性问题。这些问题具体涉及用户可用的导航和搜索机制的设计。我们在大量案例研究中发现的可用性问题正在削弱用户在日常研究活动中查找所需信息的能力。除了描述这些问题之外，还借鉴网络和可用性工程的成熟实践提出了具体的改进建议。我们所举例说明的方法和途径可供生物信息学资源的开发者轻松采用。
