Co designing Scientific Software: Hackathons for Participatory Interface Design
Taxonomy is the branch of biology concerned with classifying organisms. Taxonomic work entails a range of complex human computer and human information interactions, which are under supported by current software environments, partially because taxonomic software is largely built through ad hoc collaborations by taxonomists themselves. This results in poor user experience and difficult to use tools. Here we describe an interface design Hackathon held as part of the NSF funded Transforming Taxonomic Interfaces project. We brought taxonomists, software developers, and information scientists together to rapidly prototype new interfaces. Taxonomists quickly took to paper prototyping, and produced a number of promising designs. Emergent themes and findings relevant to the HCI community are described herein.
CHI Extended Abstracts