Industry

BioTech, Bioinformatics, Immunology

Platform

Flow Cytometry Workbench (Windows OS)

Solution

FacsDiva Configuration, Acquisition and Analysis

Limina worked with BD Biosciences, a division of Becton Dickinson and Company (BD) to help improve their flagship software package. This software is delivered to the customers as a preinstalled application that comes packaged with their FlowCytometry instruments.


THE CHALLENGE

As a legacy software, new features had been added to the FacsDiva suite on an ad‐hoc basis, resulting in known and well documented usability issues.  BD was seeing competition coming in smaller more agile vendors with streamlined stand-alone products.  The vision was set to take their competition head-on with a software UX/UI overhaul.

To address the full complexity of this project, we broke it in the following three phases:

  • Observe & Analyze: Contextual Inquiry, Expert UI Evaluation, Stakeholder Workshops, Feature Matrix Prioritization
  • Envision & Design: Visual Design Mockups, Paper Prototyping and Testing, Iconography, Data Visualizations
  • Evaluate & Refine: Ongoing design enhancement support through product beta testing

OBSERVE & ANALYZE

Our team conducted an expert UI  evaluation of the application and conducted on-site cognitive walkthroughs with end users.  We catalogued issues and recommendations taking into account the existing feature enhancement backlog to make recommendations for targeted improvements.

We catalogued our recommendations in a feature prioritization matrix for and sprint and release planning.


ENVISION & DESIGN

Our design recommendations from observation and analysis were geared towards sample acquisition and analysis.  Our design phase included UI design and specification for instrument configuration, sample management, acquisition, analysis and study management.

All designs were reviewed by the heads of engineering and product management along with scientific review by researchers.

The acquisition dashboard UI effectively incorporates multiple controls onto single interface ffor simplified monitoring and task management.

The plate UI design combines two interaction types into a single interface (Setup and Acquisition).  We use effective data visualization for enhancing salient information.  This allows BD customers to filter out and omit unnecessary data on a task by  task basis.


EVALUATE & REFINE

We took an an iterative approach starting with high level concepts and trying out a variety of methods before arriving at the final designs.  Following BD standards, we reviewed the design iterations with their internal scientists.

We analyzed the feedback and revised the designs until they were finalized for implemented by the engineering team.

Key marketing and software engineering stakeholders were involved in the design process from brainstorming through review of detailed designs. Prior to delivering the designs to the development team, there were multiple refine/evaluate iterations as technical feasibility was tested and validated.

The engagement did not end with the delivery of our designs to the development team. We worked closely with the engineers answering design questions or making necessary adjustments to the interface. Our project work with the BD Bioscience team was highly collaborative through the development and QA sprints.


THE SOLUTION

According to customer feedback “the result is a significantly improved application that is much easier to use”. Enhanced usability was one of the primary factors that improved the product’s competitiveness.

Our contribution the the FacsDiva product included: UI design enhancement, workflow, data visualization, and iconography.

Limina is a highly collaborative and flexible team that helped us build usability into a complex application within a short time and amazed our customers
BD Project Manager