• Click here for general interview script for FLUID users

Table of Contents

🍔 Dr. Frederick Shic (new user / research background)

Dr. Frederick Shic is an Associate Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Washington and Seattle Children's Research Institute. He is a computer scientist who studies autism and other neuropsychiatric conditions using techniques like eye tracking, functional near-infrared spectroscopy, and technology-enhanced behavioral methods such as mobile apps, social robots, and video games.

Research Focus Dr. Shic's research explores the social and cognitive development of children with autism. He uses eye-tracking and neuroimaging techniques to better understand these processes. His work also involves developing new technologies to improve the lives of children with autism and their families.

<aside> 📌 Interview conclusions and Isabel to-do:

• Prepare interview structure for future conversations
• Focus on website hierarchy and organization of content - different people might want different things
• Cross reference Sandra’s slides for language
• Ensure accessibility (font size and colors) </aside>

General questions

• What are your initial impressions of the site?
  • It’s not bad, but there are a LOT of acronyms and scientific jargon that is not clearly explained, a key would be useful so person knows what they’re looking at
  • Text is too small
  • Things are structured very “flat”, no hierarchy, just a bunch of links to different content without any type of overarching structure
    • Chem maps and 3D chem maps could go under one chem map category
    • Datagrams means different things to different people → have to clarify

User specific questions

• As a scientist and researcher, what are some areas of improvement that might make your workflow smoother?
  • Might want to quickly access specific graphs, maybe he has a specific area of research he’s interested in and only wants to access (example) sulfate graphs
  • More flexibility for visualization modality
• As a scientist and researcher, how do you make your resources more accessible to general audiences, such as students and other researchers?
  • Can be challenging to balance the needs of general audiences with the efficiency of a scientist’s workflow
  • Suggest creating user guides and embed help within each page
  • Provide context on how this tool is used - can feature blogs by scientists on how they personally use the site and their research

Other questions

• What are some general tips on conducting interviews with scientists about their user experience and their work? (Especially as someone who doesn’t have a strong science/research background)
  • Be prepared in advance, think about what you are most interested in, don’t be vague: could ask what is the most valuable aspect of website to that person’s scientific peers and ask them to show you their workflow
  • If you want to address general education, ask them specific questions about how they would make the content more understandable and accessible to lay people
  • 3rd theme about specific findings or examples that they think the website could point to and get a quick outline about an accessible blurb/paragraph that describes things — this way you could develop a series of very concrete deliverables focused on each person