My role
Product designer
UX design
Redesign
SME
Year, duration
2020
12 months
Team
Product owner
Product manager
3x developers
3x designers
3x SMEs
National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) is the world's largest publicly accessible repository of viral data, connecting scientists and students around the world. However, by 2020, many of these resources had become outdated and needed to be revised or redesigned. To ensure the scientific community had a reliable source of information, NCBI created a single resource that customers could use to locate, assess, analyze, visualize, and download viral sequence data. This solution has proved to be invaluable to public health researchers, academics, and students alike.
As a product designer and knowledgeable subject matter expert in the Virus group at NCBI, I have designed wireframes, planned and conducted user testing sessions for the new NCBI Virus resource.
I began by inspecting all the outdated virus-related information accessible on NCBI. I noticed that the user interface was out of date, requiring extra time and effort to access the individual resources.
After carrying out an in-depth user research consisting of email correspondence, surveys, and interviews, I uncovered that people want to be able to quickly access sequences relevant to their interests, with the capability to filter results based on associated data (geography, host, isolation source, etc.), and then download their chosen dataset quickly so they can analyze it using their own resources.
Illustrations done by Olga Blinkova
To ensure our primary goals were met, I designed interactive wireframes with graphical and search elements. This allowed users to find sequences that met their interests, while a results table showed filters to narrow their data. They also had customizable download options to make their experience more efficient. My team and I worked together with developers to create the MVP.
After running tests with our users and refining a stable version, NCBI Virus resources are still evolving based on their constant feedback. Check the live resource here!
UI design done by Kaipeng Yu
UI design done by Kaipeng Yu
Since then, the number of users actively using the NCBI Virus resource has grown 25-fold compared to pre-existing virus-related platforms. This increase in engagement has enabled the NCBI Virus team to expand their network of collaborators and supporters, providing vital feedback and helping to improve its utility to the scientific community.
By responding to user feedback and engaging with their users, NCBI Virus is becoming increasingly responsive and tailored to the requirements of the contemporary researcher.
Need more details? Please, review the full version of this case study.
