The Ensembl Redesign Giulietta Spudich and Anne Parker

This Talk… Old design Feedback on issues to be investigated Testing the new prototypes New design (feedback)

Old design

Feedback on issues to be investigated

Testing the new prototypes

New design (feedback)

Old Contigview I did not realise the yellow menu was context sensitive How do I get to BLAST? How do I change the tracks? Why is Ensembl always so slow?

Old Geneview Design How do I get to that page with the SNPs? What should I click on? Everything is very wordy I never look at the yellow bar! I didn’t know you could do that in Ensembl!

Gene Info all in One Page Leads to long pages, useful for those who print out and manually scan… Some pages would no longer open (too much information) Hard to see where this was going in terms of new data…

Issues (or Opportunities?) Speed of page rendering Discoverability of content Navigability How will we add more info to already long pages?

Speed of page rendering

Discoverability of content

Navigability

How will we add more info to already long pages?

Speed… Slow and Slower

Tracking Response Time

Increasing Species and Sizes

From Where Do We Get User Feedback? User Survey (Survey Monkey) (400 respondants) Workshops (Feedback) (92 last year) Helpdesk questions (60-70 a week)

User Survey (Survey Monkey) (400 respondants)

Workshops (Feedback) (92 last year)

Helpdesk questions (60-70 a week)

The Redesign… Internal Testing with Prototypes Discussion and vote for Ensembl developers- tabs or left hand links? External testing at UCL, Cambridge, Oxford Test sites (Survey and Exposed in Workshops)

Internal Testing with Prototypes

Discussion and vote for Ensembl developers- tabs or left hand links?

External testing at UCL, Cambridge, Oxford

Test sites (Survey and Exposed in Workshops)

The Redesign Timeline N O V E M B E R

Old Help No track-based help Page help was long (as were the pages!) No videos or images No underlying help database, static pages.

No track-based help

Page help was long (as were the pages!)

No videos or images

No underlying help database, static pages.

Initial Plan Simplify the pages: Concentrate on our three focus objects “Gene”, “Transcript” and “Location” Make navigation between these objects clear Reduce the information per page – more pages, more graphic (less text) Help database Track descriptions from the analysis table

Simplify the pages:

Concentrate on our three focus objects “Gene”, “Transcript” and “Location”

Make navigation between these objects clear

Reduce the information per page – more pages, more graphic (less text)

Help database

Track descriptions from the analysis table

Speed improvements (code) Caching of images (Apache), HTML, user and session data using memcached (more use of user’s computer, less of our servers) Smaller pages Cleaner HTML, CSS and Javascript Ajax components/templates Minimise whitespace in the JavaScript Merge JavaScript and CSS files Monolithic to Modular code

Caching of images (Apache), HTML, user and session data using memcached (more use of user’s computer, less of our servers)

Smaller pages

Cleaner HTML, CSS and Javascript

Ajax components/templates

Minimise whitespace in the JavaScript

Merge JavaScript and CSS files

Monolithic to Modular code

How did we let people know it would change? Ensembl-announce Blog post Test site (workshops)

Ensembl-announce

Blog post

Test site (workshops)

How did we let people know it had changed? Ensembl-announce Blog post Main page-what changed? Amazon

Ensembl-announce

Blog post

Main page-what changed? Amazon

Change is Good? Dear Sir, I just think the new web page look not good than before, like the 1. first page need show any thing convenient. 2. most people would don't like deep nesting page and confused 3. please let the page looks compaction. Best regard! I prefer the old version than the new one. In the new one, I can't find the promoter region or the intron region. Would you please tell me how to find them? Thanks a lot! I hated the new version of office when it first came out ;-)

Dear Sir, I just think the new web page look not good than before, like the 1. first page need show any thing convenient. 2. most people would don't like deep nesting page and confused 3. please let the page looks compaction. Best regard!

I prefer the old version than the new one. In the new one, I can't find the promoter region or the intron region. Would you please tell me how to find them? Thanks a lot!

Post Design User Survey after 6 months Helpdesk (60-70 questions per week) Workshops (verbal)

User Survey after 6 months

Helpdesk (60-70 questions per week)

Workshops (verbal)

Ongoing … Can “configure this page” be more obvious? Where is the old ExonView? Blog tip, FAQ After 6 months (from the new design) the survey told us to change some link names. Multicontigview was ported in later

Can “configure this page” be more obvious?

Where is the old ExonView?

Blog tip, FAQ

After 6 months (from the new design) the survey told us to change some link names.

Multicontigview was ported in later

Help Videos (youtube) http://www.youtube.com/user/EnsemblHelpdesk Tutorials page http://www.ensembl.org/info/website/tutorials/index.html FAQs

Videos (youtube)

http://www.youtube.com/user/EnsemblHelpdesk

Tutorials page

http://www.ensembl.org/info/website/tutorials/index.html

FAQs

Images and Videos in Help

Is it better? Survey… more people are using it daily. More ways to add pages No hidden pages Two ways to navigate, not just one (buttons + left hand links) More help

Survey… more people are using it daily.

More ways to add pages

No hidden pages

Two ways to navigate, not just one (buttons + left hand links)

More help

What did we learn? No matter how you promote it, people will freak Good to have concurrent old+new versions Everything took longer than planned! No “fixed answer”… redesign still going on as pages are improving as we go.

No matter how you promote it, people will freak

Good to have concurrent old+new versions

Everything took longer than planned!

No “fixed answer”… redesign still going on as pages are improving as we go.

Acknowledgments Fiona Cunningham, Anne Parker, James Smith and the entire Ensembl Webteam (Sanger) Xos è and the Helpdesk

Fiona Cunningham, Anne Parker, James Smith and the entire

Ensembl Webteam (Sanger)

Xos è and the Helpdesk