7 ms·

We build scientific software (http://taxonworks.org/ http://taxonworks.org/) where interfaces are notoriously bad. I feel the scientific community would benefit

by xipho 6y ago

We build scientific software (http://taxonworks.org/ http://taxonworks.org/) where interfaces are notoriously bad. I feel the scientific community would benefit so much from a (sponsored?) program that paired game developers (or UI/UX specialists, or game psychologists) with teams building scientific software. For example we help describe species- while not quite the same thing, gamers do that everywhere, skinning, equiping, stat-min-maxing, etc., they are storing facts about entitites, and getting them served back to them, often in FPS time. Of course there are different considerations, but some of the ideas are identical, e.g. store, and retrieve lots of data, in as few clicks as possible. As scientists very rarely do we have the time or opportunity to think deeply about the UI/UX experience, we have to get things done, with minimal resources, for example over the course of funding for a 2 year grant. This project was a bit of an exception, and a lot of fun to be in: https://bioip.github.io/ https://bioip.github.io/

Neputys 6y ago
As long as you exclude UI/UX from "getting things done" it's going to be notoriously bad. Academia, government, enterprise all the same. There's no accountability to actual users and doing UX properly would turn the whole project on it's head so guess why no one cares...
- xipho 6y ago
  | There's no accountability to actual users and doing UX properly would turn the whole project on it's head so guess why no one cares... I don't think we're saying they don't care. It's a balance, right? I've been around long enought to see the UI/UX world emerge and become more defined, but some of that world is common sense that comes with experience. In my experience some UI/UX is hot-air, and in fact gets in the way of getting things done, but other bits/and insights are super useful. What I'm suggesting is to tease out specifics with reference to systems that others are familiar with- games.
  - Neputys 6y ago
    In that sense, personally, everyone cares. But when people have to operate in big org environments priorities change. Think about it, no one wakes up in the morning and thinks I'm going to make something terrifyingly hard to use today. No one invests or gives grants for something that "is going to be terrifyingly hard to use", right? And yet dominating majority of big org software is terrifyingly hard to use. The answer to why? I think is the point you are missing. Your suggestion is commendable, interesting but no number of references or examples are going to help make your next project better as well as that why. As far as UI/UX world goes it has a problem of becoming fashionable, popular and somewhat profitable. This always attracts certain kinds of people and hot air. I'm sure you have plenty of your own examples in academia.
    - xipho 6y ago
      I'm admit I'm not totally clear as to your point. If it is that software is terrible because it's not accountable to its users then yes, I agree, this is often one of the reasons why. In our case our group is funded primarily by an endowement. We use (dogfood) our own software, therefor we are accountable to ourselves. We are also developing it for our friends, collaborators, and other scientists who have traditionally not had access to the types of tools we work on, we are accountable to them. The bits that exist are because our users need them, have co-designed them, and have given us a ton of feedback as to how to iteratively improve them. We don't have to sell ($) them a product (yes, we understand there are long term issues with growth, support, and sustainability that will take hard work to deal with). We're fortunate enough to have time to think and engage with concepts that startups that must have to sell products must master, thus we can "dream" about what game interfaces might bring to the table.
petargyurov 6y ago
> scientific software ... where interfaces are notoriously bad. I think the problem here is two fold: bad UIs and bad APIs. In the science world, there doesn't seem to be any abstraction between backend and frotnend -- the whole thing is one intertwined mess. Scientists don't always write great software; they write scripts that get the job done quickly in a very specific way. Pair that with the lack of time that they have to wrap things in a GUI and you get a Tkinter/Qt app that is unmaintanable. I'm currently volunteering with the NZ Department of Conservation. Here is a tiny preview [0] of an app that I have just started making for them. It's purpose is to aid scientists with processing camera trap images using machine learning. I'm building the UI using ElectronJS and Svelte, whilst the backend is a separate Python project. [0] https://streamable.com/0ji1ii https://streamable.com/0ji1ii
- Neputys 6y ago
  How is Electron doing btw? I'm itching to use it in one project but it doesn't feel like it's getting any traction in the community for a long time now. Since it's a long term project I kind of get mixed feelings about using it.
  - petargyurov 6y ago
    This is my first project with it so I'm probably not in a position to provide much insight. So far development with it has been almost identical to coding a website, but maybe because I am yet to start on any OS dependant features. What makes you say that it isn't getting traction? AFAIK, some huge companies are using it to create their apps. I think it gets a lot of underserved hate, just because it's JS and because it isn't "truly native". People also love to chime in about its performance but 9/10 times that's down to a bad implementation, in my humble opinion.
    - pjmlp 6y ago
      On top of that, I already have a browser installed and each Electron app is a step for turning the Web into ChromeOS.
    - 6y ago
ThomPete 6y ago
At First Principle we have tried to offer our design help for free for the scientific research community because we want to support the community. Whether robotics, ai or medical. Most of the time there isn't really an interest from the people involved because they just want to do the research and not add the work of getting a proper interface working ontop of what they already have to deal with. The offer still stands though.
- xipho 6y ago
  See comments/links above in this thread re our first community building event. All feedback is good feedback.
brianzelip 6y ago
Cheers to Pixo! As a UIUC alumn, it's great to see their work referenced on HN!
- xipho 6y ago
  It was great to work with Pixo. They developed the logo, and homepage, and we ran an experiment together where they built out an interface against our APIs. I learned alot about all aspects of software development from the process, and they learned a little about our science. Would recommend.
areoform 6y ago
I am somewhat familiar with both, UI/UX and keep relatively apace with a few fields of research. Currently, I'm working to become good at front-end development. This is an area I'd like to work on, if you have a project that could use someone like me please hit me up here (a comment with your email) or via twitter (@_areoform).
- xipho 6y ago
  We just wrapped up our very first community building event. https://github.com/SpeciesFileGroup/taxonworks_together_2020 https://github.com/SpeciesFileGroup/taxonworks_together_2020. You can track us down from there if you're interested. All our software is open source, and we have a ton of open issues ;).
  - areoform 6y ago
    Thanks! Will do. BTW, I'm fairly certain that the "github submit a pull request" model doesn't work for UI/UX. Consistency and tone matters, as does integrating feedback and cycling it. The idea of hitting issues piecemeal without some kind of overarching strategy feels like a recipe for failure. Unless you have unified brand guidelines, a UI component library etc, such an effort seems like an exercise in futility.
    - xipho 6y ago
      That's a good point re PRs. One possible way of interacting would be to explore the API, and develop a proof of concept UI element with a bit of functionality, that plays off it. Perhaps in a context like this: https://github.com/jlpereira/tw_api_test https://github.com/jlpereira/tw_api_test. We do have use various semantics throughout the project, randomly documented. Contributions to how best to organize and get beyond this are also welcome, along the lines of this issue: https://github.com/SpeciesFileGroup/taxonworks/issues/85 https://github.com/SpeciesFileGroup/taxonworks/issues/85.
gfxgirl 6y ago
Games just as often as not have terrible UIs. Take Destiny 2 for example. It's a nightmare of right click (no indication that you'd want to right click). And in particular games are flash for flash sake. I love it for games but I wouldn't want my app I'm trying to be productive with to animate every tiny motion or throw out sparks when I click a button. Further, much of the database is joypad controlled UIs
- xipho 6y ago
  Right. But there are many games, many experiments to draw from. |Further, much of the database is joypad controlled UIs Scientific software requires exploring data, one could imagine many interfaces where joypads, VRs controllers, etc. could be useful and more intuitive ways to do this exploration.
  - chromanoid 6y ago
    I disagree. Designing ergonomic interfaces is too often too far from designing playful interfaces that support the gameplay. Game designers != UX designers. UX designers already are the "game designers" of applications. And unfortunately they are not that often part of game development teams.
    - xipho 6y ago
      I'm pretty sure (well certain) it's possible to do. We built a demo VR project to explore insect anatomy. It didn't get very far, was ultra crude, and we had no clue what to consider in the UI/UX of VR. It melted our fellow scientist's minds, without exception they were floored by the potential, and this a complete hack. https://github.com/bioip/vronto https://github.com/bioip/vronto
      - chromanoid 6y ago
        Sorry for the late reply, I lost track of my comment. Serious VR applications are around for quite some time now. There is a pretty huge research body on VR, usability in VR etc. Recent consumer VR makes it certainly more accessible but the already existing body of VR research is still applicable. IMO it's simply not a new frontier that game designers are necessarily the best experts in. Especially when you consider under which constraints games are developed.
dzonga 6y ago
a lot of things would benefit UI wise if paired with game UI devs
- chromanoid 6y ago
  I wonder how many games have dedicated UI developers. GUIs beside the game itself are often clunky, complicated and at best playful.
ampdepolymerase 6y ago
The issue is that it is hard to make money in scientific software, especially for life sciences. You usually get a bimodal distribution: really big, entrenched, and massive software firms and the rest have <100 headcount. There is no middle ground.
andrei_says_ 6y ago
I think this is a great idea. Imagine the amount of time and unnecessary confusion this could save. Game UX and UI are often incredibly good, including seamless gradual on boarding.

by xipho 6y ago

Neputys 6y ago

As long as you exclude UI/UX from "getting things done" it's going to be notoriously bad. Academia, government, enterprise all the same. There's no accountability to actual users and doing UX properly would turn the whole project on it's head so guess why no one cares...

xipho 6y ago
| There's no accountability to actual users and doing UX properly would turn the whole project on it's head so guess why no one cares... I don't think we're saying they don't care. It's a balance, right? I've been around long enought to see the UI/UX world emerge and become more defined, but some of that world is common sense that comes with experience. In my experience some UI/UX is hot-air, and in fact gets in the way of getting things done, but other bits/and insights are super useful. What I'm suggesting is to tease out specifics with reference to systems that others are familiar with- games.
- Neputys 6y ago
  In that sense, personally, everyone cares. But when people have to operate in big org environments priorities change. Think about it, no one wakes up in the morning and thinks I'm going to make something terrifyingly hard to use today. No one invests or gives grants for something that "is going to be terrifyingly hard to use", right? And yet dominating majority of big org software is terrifyingly hard to use. The answer to why? I think is the point you are missing. Your suggestion is commendable, interesting but no number of references or examples are going to help make your next project better as well as that why. As far as UI/UX world goes it has a problem of becoming fashionable, popular and somewhat profitable. This always attracts certain kinds of people and hot air. I'm sure you have plenty of your own examples in academia.
  - xipho 6y ago
    I'm admit I'm not totally clear as to your point. If it is that software is terrible because it's not accountable to its users then yes, I agree, this is often one of the reasons why. In our case our group is funded primarily by an endowement. We use (dogfood) our own software, therefor we are accountable to ourselves. We are also developing it for our friends, collaborators, and other scientists who have traditionally not had access to the types of tools we work on, we are accountable to them. The bits that exist are because our users need them, have co-designed them, and have given us a ton of feedback as to how to iteratively improve them. We don't have to sell ($) them a product (yes, we understand there are long term issues with growth, support, and sustainability that will take hard work to deal with). We're fortunate enough to have time to think and engage with concepts that startups that must have to sell products must master, thus we can "dream" about what game interfaces might bring to the table.

petargyurov 6y ago

> scientific software ... where interfaces are notoriously bad. I think the problem here is two fold: bad UIs and bad APIs. In the science world, there doesn't seem to be any abstraction between backend and frotnend -- the whole thing is one intertwined mess. Scientists don't always write great software; they write scripts that get the job done quickly in a very specific way. Pair that with the lack of time that they have to wrap things in a GUI and you get a Tkinter/Qt app that is unmaintanable. I'm currently volunteering with the NZ Department of Conservation. Here is a tiny preview [0] of an app that I have just started making for them. It's purpose is to aid scientists with processing camera trap images using machine learning. I'm building the UI using ElectronJS and Svelte, whilst the backend is a separate Python project. [0] https://streamable.com/0ji1ii https://streamable.com/0ji1ii

Neputys 6y ago
How is Electron doing btw? I'm itching to use it in one project but it doesn't feel like it's getting any traction in the community for a long time now. Since it's a long term project I kind of get mixed feelings about using it.
- petargyurov 6y ago
  This is my first project with it so I'm probably not in a position to provide much insight. So far development with it has been almost identical to coding a website, but maybe because I am yet to start on any OS dependant features. What makes you say that it isn't getting traction? AFAIK, some huge companies are using it to create their apps. I think it gets a lot of underserved hate, just because it's JS and because it isn't "truly native". People also love to chime in about its performance but 9/10 times that's down to a bad implementation, in my humble opinion.
  - pjmlp 6y ago
    On top of that, I already have a browser installed and each Electron app is a step for turning the Web into ChromeOS.
  - 6y ago

ThomPete 6y ago

At First Principle we have tried to offer our design help for free for the scientific research community because we want to support the community. Whether robotics, ai or medical. Most of the time there isn't really an interest from the people involved because they just want to do the research and not add the work of getting a proper interface working ontop of what they already have to deal with. The offer still stands though.

xipho 6y ago
See comments/links above in this thread re our first community building event. All feedback is good feedback.

brianzelip 6y ago

Cheers to Pixo! As a UIUC alumn, it's great to see their work referenced on HN!

xipho 6y ago
It was great to work with Pixo. They developed the logo, and homepage, and we ran an experiment together where they built out an interface against our APIs. I learned alot about all aspects of software development from the process, and they learned a little about our science. Would recommend.

areoform 6y ago

I am somewhat familiar with both, UI/UX and keep relatively apace with a few fields of research. Currently, I'm working to become good at front-end development. This is an area I'd like to work on, if you have a project that could use someone like me please hit me up here (a comment with your email) or via twitter (@_areoform).

xipho 6y ago
We just wrapped up our very first community building event. https://github.com/SpeciesFileGroup/taxonworks_together_2020 https://github.com/SpeciesFileGroup/taxonworks_together_2020. You can track us down from there if you're interested. All our software is open source, and we have a ton of open issues ;).
- areoform 6y ago
  Thanks! Will do. BTW, I'm fairly certain that the "github submit a pull request" model doesn't work for UI/UX. Consistency and tone matters, as does integrating feedback and cycling it. The idea of hitting issues piecemeal without some kind of overarching strategy feels like a recipe for failure. Unless you have unified brand guidelines, a UI component library etc, such an effort seems like an exercise in futility.
  - xipho 6y ago
    That's a good point re PRs. One possible way of interacting would be to explore the API, and develop a proof of concept UI element with a bit of functionality, that plays off it. Perhaps in a context like this: https://github.com/jlpereira/tw_api_test https://github.com/jlpereira/tw_api_test. We do have use various semantics throughout the project, randomly documented. Contributions to how best to organize and get beyond this are also welcome, along the lines of this issue: https://github.com/SpeciesFileGroup/taxonworks/issues/85 https://github.com/SpeciesFileGroup/taxonworks/issues/85.

gfxgirl 6y ago

Games just as often as not have terrible UIs. Take Destiny 2 for example. It's a nightmare of right click (no indication that you'd want to right click). And in particular games are flash for flash sake. I love it for games but I wouldn't want my app I'm trying to be productive with to animate every tiny motion or throw out sparks when I click a button. Further, much of the database is joypad controlled UIs

xipho 6y ago
Right. But there are many games, many experiments to draw from. |Further, much of the database is joypad controlled UIs Scientific software requires exploring data, one could imagine many interfaces where joypads, VRs controllers, etc. could be useful and more intuitive ways to do this exploration.
- chromanoid 6y ago
  I disagree. Designing ergonomic interfaces is too often too far from designing playful interfaces that support the gameplay. Game designers != UX designers. UX designers already are the "game designers" of applications. And unfortunately they are not that often part of game development teams.
  - xipho 6y ago
    I'm pretty sure (well certain) it's possible to do. We built a demo VR project to explore insect anatomy. It didn't get very far, was ultra crude, and we had no clue what to consider in the UI/UX of VR. It melted our fellow scientist's minds, without exception they were floored by the potential, and this a complete hack. https://github.com/bioip/vronto https://github.com/bioip/vronto
    - chromanoid 6y ago
      Sorry for the late reply, I lost track of my comment. Serious VR applications are around for quite some time now. There is a pretty huge research body on VR, usability in VR etc. Recent consumer VR makes it certainly more accessible but the already existing body of VR research is still applicable. IMO it's simply not a new frontier that game designers are necessarily the best experts in. Especially when you consider under which constraints games are developed.

dzonga 6y ago

a lot of things would benefit UI wise if paired with game UI devs

chromanoid 6y ago
I wonder how many games have dedicated UI developers. GUIs beside the game itself are often clunky, complicated and at best playful.

ampdepolymerase 6y ago

The issue is that it is hard to make money in scientific software, especially for life sciences. You usually get a bimodal distribution: really big, entrenched, and massive software firms and the rest have <100 headcount. There is no middle ground.

andrei_says_ 6y ago

I think this is a great idea. Imagine the amount of time and unnecessary confusion this could save. Game UX and UI are often incredibly good, including seamless gradual on boarding.