Cybershuttle

TL;DR: Cybershuttle is a platform that streamlines the workflow of biophysicists, so that they do not need to juggle between different softwares and supercomputers.

Overview

Cybershuttle is a platform that makes research easier for biophysicists. It aims at providing scientists improved team management, better simulation visualizations, and seamless integration with supercomputers.

Duration

3 months

Team members

2 UX Designers, 3 Developers, Project Lead

Key responsibilities

UX Research & Design

Right from research work, all the way to getting simulation results, biophysicists go through a lot of hurdles.

PROCESS

Designing for biophysicists was challenging. It began with understanding their domain, breaking down requirements, and grasping the intricacies of their research workflow.

By speaking with biophysicists and studying their research workflow, we learnt that their current research workflow is disconnected and incomplete.

VISUAL BRAINSTORMING

To get an idea of how the above features would look and function, we created some initial sketches to get some feedback and initiate stakeholder buy-in.

FINAL DESIGNS

Based on the feedback from different stakeholders, I refined the initial sketches into high-fidelity prototypes, to form the final solution.

Back to Solution

CHALLENGE

Improve the research experience and speed of biophysicists by helping them manage their teams and seamlessly connect to different devices.

To address this challenge, we identified key features of the Cybershuttle that would provide a solution to the problem at hand.

PROCESS

PROCESS

How might we improve the workflow of biophysicists, to alleviate their management, collaboration and functional concerns?

Design Process

But to improve their workflow, it was important for us to understand it in order to relate to their research hurdles.

Structure Data Preparation

Simulation Setup

Simulation Input Files

Run Simulation

Visualization & Analysis

It was now easier to understand what the biophysicists are dealing with. To make their workflow better, we interviewed them to gain actionable insights.

Diego

I want to oversee my team's projects, check our progress, and help solve any issues we encounter.

Mariano

I struggle with managing and analyzing simulation results because I have to switch between different softwares and hardware.

Diego

Running a simulation has a lot of challenges, you have to select the appropriate software and hardware.

Although these were the core challenges, there were many complex requirements to consider for the design of Cybershuttle.

We did some visual research with respect to the keywords above, to get inspiration for the Cybershuttle platform.

Through interviews and clustering, we extracted keywords required for identifying features important for Cybershuttle.

Team Management

Management of simulations

Monitoring of experiments

Visualization of molecules

Integration between PC and Supercomputers

File Management

Project Management

Scientists can manage their groups and projects under them through this interface.

By accessing groups, scientists get an overview of the members involved, and can remove or add them.

Scientists can check and monitor all their simulations, project wise

Scientists can view all the details with respect to each simulation in their Job Monitor.

Scientists can check the resource allocation of supercomputers through this interface.

The completion of visual research paved the way for the creation and design of low-fidelity wireframes.

The low-fidelity designs were further developed into high-fidelity screens, with the help of a defined design system.

A comprehensive system for easy management of projects

A unified view of all projects, project managers and the status of each project, facilitating effortless project management.

Seamless interaction between PC and supercomputers.

A simple and easy to use interface for biophysicists to upload simulation files directly from their personal computers to supercomputers.

A comprehensive system for easy management of projects

A unified view of all projects, project managers and the status of each project, facilitating effortless project management.

A bird’s view on resource usage

A concise view of storage and compute units used by all team members.

Reflections

01.

Grasping and understanding scientific domain knowledge was a bit challenging at first, and there were a lot of grey areas in this process.

02.

The requirements of this project detailed a vast amount of information to be shown in the user interface, which made it important to craft a seamless user experience.

03.

Creating an easy to use navigation system by designing a site map was effective in establishing the flow of the Cybershuttle platform.

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