User Experience Design for RSEs
User Experience Design (UX) is not widely practiced for scientific software due to several factors. Research software engineers (RSEs) typically do not have the time and resources for the long and involved UX methodologies that are recommended in industry. Additionally, differences between industry and scientific software mean that many currently available UX resources contain methodologies or recommendations that are not always applicable for RSEs.
BSSw Fellow Mary Goldman will create a web-based UX resource for RSE developers. The website developed under this fellowship will detail what UX is and how it can be applied to scientific software. It will catalogue easy-to-implement UX methodologies and how they can be applied to the research software development process. The resource will focus on methods that can be done with few resources, such as heuristic evaluation and paper prototypes. By developing a UX resource tailored for RSEs, Mary hopes to give RSEs the tools they need to make scientific software more usable and ultimately better serve the needs of the researchers who are using it.
Mary is passionate about giving users the best possible experience of scientific software. She is a Design and Outreach Engineer at the UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute and has been working in scientific software at the since 2010. She advocates for UX in scientific software through leading workshops, giving presentations, and writing about her experiences as a UX researcher. She is a co-leader of the US-RSE UX working group and enjoys mentoring undergraduate students.
