Creating a Conceptual Blueprint

Initially an academic research tool, mass spectrometers are now commonplace in the drug discovery and development laboratories of pharmaceutical companies and contract research organizations. But while the technology behind the instruments has become increasingly sophisticated, the typical user of mass spectrometers has not. Once the domain of a high-priesthood of "mass spec gurus", today's users are chemists and biologists with little training or interest in the inner workings of a mass spectrometer.

The Engagement

MDS Sciex is a global leader in the research, design and production of mass spectrometers. An early player in the marketplace, MDS Sciex has led the development of new applications for mass spectrometry and has witnessed first hand the shift in the technology's user-base. To help secure their position in this changing market, they turned to Human Factors MD to define a new conceptual design for the user interface of their data collection and analysis software. A user interface design that would set the industry standard for ease-of-use. A design that would be simple enough to deliver the power of mass spectrometry to a new class of user without the complexity inherent in the science and technology.

Our Approach

Human Factors MD's efforts began with point-of-use interviews with mass spec users at pharmaceutical and contract research laboratories. Based on interviews with dozens of research scientists and technologists, we developed user, environment, and task models that captured the key differences between user types at various stages in the drug discovery and development process. The user, environment, and task models served as the basis for subsequent design decisions.

After brainstorming sessions with the MDS Sciex project team, we created several design candidates that captured different visions for the user interface of the company's next-generation software. Several iterations later, we narrowed the focus to the strongest candidate.

Next, paper prototypes were used to evaluate the design with mass spec users drawn from several pharmaceutical laboratories. During testing, users were shown paper mockups of screens and dialogs and asked to "simulate" data acquisition and analysis scenarios.

Feedback from the tests led to design updates which where then followed by another round of user-based testing and revisions.

Results

The final conceptual design was a significant departure from the "processing modules" approach of MDS Sciex's competitors. Competitor user interfaces packaged data acquisition and processing functionality in sets of independent "modules" that users needed to launch and then load data into. Our data-centric design enabled users to focus on their data, not the software modules needed to process them. As sample data are acquired, processed, and analyzed, the software automatically presents only the functions and options appropriate for that stage in the process.

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