9 years at EMBL-EBI: a retrospective

I’ll be leaving EMBL-EBI soon so I took the opportunity to reflect on the last 9 years in this exceptional organisation. I was fortunate to work with many outstanding colleagues during that period so I have written this retrospective to thank them for their contributions and highlight the main outcomes of our collaboration.

Designing for scientists and scientific data

I joined EMBL-EBI in the summer of 2014 to work as the Lead User Experience (UX) Designer on a new project which was called Centre for Therapeutic Target Validation (CTTV) at that time but was later renamed Open Targets.

Our small but dynamic team applied Lean UX methods to design an intuitive web application for drug discovery scientists. We engaged with users at every stage of our iterative design and development process and released the first version of the Open Targets platform within 7 months.

Our work for Open Targets laid the foundation for how I approached UX Design in subsequent projects which involved scientists and scientific data. In my webinar about UX Design at EMBL-EBI for the SciLifeLab Data Centre, I introduce the basic principles of this approach and outline the three iterative steps that the UX Design process consists of, namely User Research, Design and Feedback.

Teams often face budget and time constraints. We have addressed this challenge by identifying our target audience and their goals, sketching alternative designs on paper and getting feedback on our design. These three simple steps have helped us redesign a scientific website with limited budget and time.

An additional challenge in this project was that we were not collocated so we were collaborating remotely by video calls, email and shared documents. This way of working was a bit unusual at that time but this prior experience helped us adapt during the pandemic and when remote working became more common afterwards.

As demand for UX help grew at EMBL-EBI, I started developing and delivering a one day hands-on UX training workshop in collaboration with my UX colleagues and the EMBL-EBI Training team. Our UX training workshops have allowed us to scale UX capacity and build a UX community of practice at EMBL-EBI. The participants rated the workshops very highly and also gave us very positive qualitative feedback.

Learning about our users

The first and foremost step in the UX process is user research. During my time at EMBL-EBI I had the opportunity to learn more about the people who use our website and our various services and give guidance to colleagues from other teams who were doing their own user research.

One of the most enjoyable collaborations was the investigation of curation practices together with colleagues at EuropePMC. We carried out an observational study to understand common curation workflow patterns which were articulated as a curator persona and a curation experience map. We then ran a curator community survey to quantify and elaborate on the main trends identified in our contextual interviews. This combination of qualitative and quantitative research helped us identify opportunities for Text Mining technologies to better support curators, following up on my earlier work on applying Natural Language Processing in aid of Flybase curators.

Our UX training also placed a lot of emphasis on user research. The positive impact of this communal effort was kindly acknowledged by Ewan Birney (EMBL-EBI’s co-Director) in this delightful tweet:

Designing accessible solutions that meet user needs

At the early stages of a project, we would typically run a sketching session to explore alternative designs.

After a few rounds of user feedback we would then be in a position to create higher fidelity mockups or prototypes. The Visual Framework, i.e. the design system of EMBL (our parent organisation), has allowed us to reuse components and patterns and ensure consistency in these designs.

We started applying the Visual Framework when we set out to redesign the EMBL-EBI Training website and fostered a close collaboration with Ken Hawkins and the Digital and Creative teams at EMBL who pioneered its application to the redesign of the EMBL website.

After Ken left EMBL, I became the Product Owner of the Visual Framework. My vision for the Visual Framework is that it should provide good defaults and technical flexibility for life science websites to:

• Follow solid UX principles
• Meet accessibility standards
• Showcase the EMBL brand
• Be compatible with multiple frontend development frameworks
• Offer guidance and demonstrate best practice.

The redesign of the EMBL-EBI website demonstrates how we have been realising this vision. By using the Visual Framework as the main building block for redesigning the EMBL-EBI site and by integrating accessibility testing into our Scrum process, we significantly improved the accessibility of our website. As the result of this effort, WebAIM ranked the EMBL-EBI home page in the top 1% for accessibility in 2023. The page has moved up more than 430,000 places in the ranking after it has been redesigned.

Bridging the gap between UX Design and data visualisation

Open Targets and several other projects that I was involved in, required us to visualise complex data. Through my interactions with the Industry engagement team and the Training team at EMBL-EBI, I was introduced to data visualisation and gave a webinar that introduces the basic principles of designing scientific figures.

I also had the chance to introduce the participants of our Data visualisation for biology training course to the basic principles of UX Design. I hope that this helped bridge the gap between UX design and data visualisation that I observed when I was first introduced to data visualisation.

Getting feedback from users and defining quantitative metrics?

UX Design at EMBL-EBI is an iterative process, which includes sharing our designs with our target audience and collecting their feedback. To encourage my colleagues to do this early and often, I gave a webinar that introduces the basic principles of usability testing.

As our teams became more proficient in collecting feedback from users, we came up with a new method that we called “group usability testing”. By running several usability tests in parallel with a small group of up to 10 participants we managed to leverage user feedback in less time without compromising on its quality. During the pandemic we adjusted this method to collect feedback from remote participants in a single session.

As in the other stages of our process, we have tried to combine qualitative and quantitative feedback data. My case study for the UX for Life Sciences (UXLS) toolkit outlines how we supplemented qualitative user feedback with quantitative metrics which were defined collaboratively using the HEART framework for Open Targets. We have been using web analytics since then to enrich our understanding from our user research and feedback sessions.

Applying UX practices in a Scrum context

In 2020 I became a Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO). In addition to acting as the Product Owner of the Visual Framework, I have supported other Product Owners and Scrum teams as an Agile coach in our projects.

Applying UX Design practices in a Scrum context can be a challenge but my colleagues took Scrum training on their own and generally recognise the importance of meeting user needs.

One of the best moments in this journey was the retrospective of our first sprint with the EMBL-EBI Training team who were new to both UX Design and Scrum at that time. We asked them to use a smiley (or sad) face to express how they felt about the sprint: The result was all smiles :-)

EMBL-EBI provided stability in uncertain times

In the last 9 years, my partner was awarded an MBE in the?Queen’s Birthday?Honours List for her services to inclusive design, our second son was born and we saw our first boy overcome many of the barriers that he faces because of his disability.

We also experienced a pandemic, potential bankruptcy in Greece, the climate emergency, war in Europe and the cost of living crisis. We faced health issues in our family too and had to look after our ageing parents, while both my grandmother and my father in law passed away.?

EMBL-EBI provided stability, plenty of annual and special leave, a competitive salary, generous health insurance and support for the education of my eldest son. It helped me feel that if I fall down, I am not alone and can get back on my feet.?

UX and Scrum takes a village

UX Design and Scrum often requires us to change the way we work but this is not always easy. I was fortunate enough to be supported by many people in the last 9 years so I would like to pay them back with a simple mention in this article.

I hope that the list of names that follows will not put you off. Also if you supported me too somehow but I failed to mention you, please let me know. It’s been 9 years after all, I have grown older and I forget more easily.

So many thanks to:

- My current and former UX colleagues in the EMBL-EBI Web Development team and beyond, especially Joseph Rossetto , Jennifer Cham , Francis Rowland , Revathi Nathaniel , Galabina Yordanova , Michele Ide-Smith , Lynne Faulk , Sangya Pundir , Andrew Hercules , Charlie Hathaway, CBAP Cindy Natassia , Stefan Gutnick Allen , Adedoyin Okunade , Ivanna Pidruchna and Carla Oliveira .

- The pioneers of Open Targets, notably Ian Dunham , Jessica Vamathevan , David Hulcoop , Jeffrey Barrett , Denise Carvalho-Silva, Miguel Pignatelli , Luca Fumis , Samiul Hasan , Gautier K. , Michael Maguire , Miguel Carmona , ???? Eliseo P. , Andrea Pierleoni , Johannes Freudenberg and Miguel Carmona .

- The EMBL-EBI Training team and the User Training Working Group, including Cath Brooksbank , Sarah Morgan , Aziz Mithani , Vera Matser , Marta Lloret Llinares , Ajay Mishra , Rebecca Nicholl (is on maternity leave) , Sophie Spencer , Jane Reynolds , Anna Swan , Melissa Burke , Piraveen Gopalasingam , Typhaine Paysan-Lafosse and Benjamin Moore .

- The EMBL-EBI Industry engagement team, particularly Matt Hall , Effie Mutasa-Gottgens , Lucie Smith and Emily Pomeroy

- The EMBL-EBI Communications team, especially Lindsey Crosswell , Gemma Wood , Rodica Petrusevschi , Oana Stroe , Karen Arnott , Spencer Phillips and Jeff Dowling .

- The EMBL Digital and EMBL Creative team, notably Tabea Rauscher , Cian O'Luanaigh , Ken Hawkins , Stuart Robson , Mark Boulton , Szymon Kasprzyk and Spilios Vasilopoulos .

- Our Human Resources team, including Georgina Birchall , Dhyana Prince , Rick Witham , Sultana Parveen and Sara Mingardi.

- Our very kind receptionists, especially Jenny and Toke, and our amazingly helpful IT team, particularly Sam Hester and Ben Reilly .

- The attendees of our data visualisation courses and the data visualisation community, principally Jan Aerts , Ryo Sakai , James (Jim) Procter and Adam Frost .

- The participants of our UX Training workshops and everyone else whom I worked with at EMBL-EBI, including our bright developers, team leads and Product Owners, namely Sandeep Kadam , Prakash Singh , José Francisco Pe?a Estrada , Mahfouz Shehu , Bhushan Palsapure , Maged Eladawy , Nitin Jadhav , Ossama Edbali , Aravind Venkatesan , Francesco Talo' , Jonathan Warren , Mihaly Varadi , Xavier Watkins , Conor McMenamin and Aoife McMahon .

- The UX for Life Sciences (UXLS) community, that I had the privilege to lead during my last few months at EMBL-EBI, including Paula de Matos , Julie Morrison , Roger Attrill , Rob Graham , Simon Fortenbacher , Sven Neumeyer , Voula Gkatzidou , Brian Mila , Nelson Taruc ? , Yuliya Podlesny and Matan Berson as well as the amazing team of the Pistoia Alliance , especially Becky Upton , John Wise , M. Hall Gregg , Anca Maria Ciobanu , Zahid Tharia , Miffy Wilson Online Business Manager and David Prior .

- Everyone who offered me career advice, notably Jason Mesut , ?????? Andy Budd , Dr Tracy Bussoli , Mark Boxall , Rich Livett and Tim Beard .

- My line managers, Brendan Vaughan , Jonathan Hickford , Peter Walter and Geetika Malhotra , for their trust and support.

- All other leaders at EMBL-EBI, particularly Ewan Birney for recommending everyone to drink "the UX cool aid”, Jo McEntyre , Helen Parkinson , Maria-Jesus Martin , Irene Papatheodorou , Steven Newhouse and Andy Cafferkey .

I never expected to have the opportunity to work with such a talented and diverse group of people. I learned a lot from all of you and I will miss you!

Moving to a Product Owner role

I have enjoyed my role as Product Owner of our design system and the opportunity that I had to support our Scrum teams so much that I am planning to transition to a full time Product Owner position for my next role.

But before that I will take a bit of a break to spend more time with my family and on personal and professional development. I will be available for a chat from time to time so if you want to get in touch, just contact me via LinkedIn.

Take care in the meantime and many thanks again to everyone for the great times that we had in the last 9 years!

Related content

UX Design process and UX training at EMBL-EBI

• Designing an intuitive web application for drug discovery scientists, Drug Discovery Today, volume 23, issue 6, pages 1169-1174, June 2018.
• UX Design at EMBL-EBI: A case study introducing first principles, recorded webinar hosted by NBIS – National Bioinformatics Infrastructure Sweden and the SciLifeLab Data Centre, January 2023. The slides of this presentation are also available.
• How to redesign a scientific website in three simple steps with limited budget and time, LinkedIN article,?May 2019.
• Scaling UX capacity in a scientific organisation, LinkedIN article, February 2020.

User research

• Understanding life sciences data curation practices via user research, F1000Research,?8(ELIXIR):1622, September 2019. Includes a curator persona?and?a curation experience map.

Accessibility and EMBL's design system

• Improving the accessibility of the EMBL-EBI website, LinkedIN article, January 2023.
• Improving the accessibility of the EMBL-EBI website: background, process, and lessons, recorded webinar, June 2023.

UX Design and data visualisation

• Bridging the gap between user experience design and data visualisation, LinkedIN article, July 2018.
• Data visualisation 101: A practical introduction to designing scientific figures | EMBL-EBI Training, recorded webinar, September 2018.

Usability testing and quantitative metrics

• Getting feedback from users: A practical introduction to usability testing, recorded webinar, June 2021.
• How to get feedback from more people in less time, LinkedIN article, October 2018.
• Using the HEART framework to define quantitative metrics for the Open Targets Platform, case study for the UX for Life Sciences (UXLS) toolkit, January 2018.