本研究從使用者角度出發,運用人機介面之觀點與一系列的使用性評估方法,分析國內生物資訊與生物醫學相關領域之研究人員常使用的工具-NCBI網站介面設計。主要研究目標有三:(1)獲得與了解NCBI使用者的使用經驗與使用情況,探討其介面可能困擾使用者之因素;(2)從所獲得的使用經驗中,提出新介面模組;(3)評估新介面模組,從使用者經驗中調查使用性程度與該模組對NCBI網站之影響。 研究結果顯示NCBI網站介面普遍符合設計要素,但在「網頁主題過多」、「專業用語過多」與「使用他國介面語言」等要素中表現較差;因此,本研究利用發展性原型模式發展一個生物專有名詞定義系統(Bioinformatics Terminology Identification System,BioTIS)解決資訊人員在進入生物資訊相關領域時,生物專業用語過多而導致許多資訊不連載與記憶負擔過大等問題。評估結果顯示受測者對於BioTIS贊同度極高,在受測者填答問卷分析中顯示出18題評估分數平均皆達3.8分以上,其中有72%的題目平均分數更達4分以上(5分為滿分,表示非常滿意),並且認為此系統對於在知曉生物專業用語與在NCBI網站之使用上是有極大幫助。 本研究對生物資訊資源之使用者介面設計提出具體改進建議,並歸納出一套適合生物資訊網站的使用者介面設計原則,期望可以作為日後網站建置或改版時的設計參考,進而提高生物資訊資源之使用率,相信對於跨領域整合性類型的網站介面設計有所助益。
This study addressed the usability of NCBI website, which had been the most commonly used tools by the researchers in the fields of bioinformatics and biomedicine. The main objectives of this study are threefold: (1) Investigating the user experiences of using the NCBI website tools to probe into the factors of distracting the users; (2) Proposing a new interface module based on the above investigation; (3) Evaluating the usability of NCBI website with the new interface module embedded to examine the effect of the new interface module on NCBI website through the user experiences. The investigation results showed that most of the design factors in NCBI website conform to users interface design principle except in three items: "too many subjects and concepts", "too many professional terminologies of biology", and "using English as the web language". These items would result in the problems of information discontinuity and memory over-loading. Hence, we adopted the evolutionary model to develop a so-called "Bioinformatics Terminology Identification System (BioTIS)" to cope with these problems in the interface of NCBI website. The evaluation of the new interface module showed that the participators were highly satisfactory to the changes in the NCBI interface. The analysis of questionnaires showed that the average scores of 18 questions are above 3.8, and the average scores of 72% questions are above 4 (the perfect score is 5 meaning highly satisfied). And, it is regarded that this BioTIS is beneficial to the knowledge of professional terminologies of biology and the use of NCBI website. This study concluded some valuable interface design principles for the bioinformatics resource tools for the future reference to the website builders and website re-designers. It is believed that these principles would enhance the utility rate of bioinformatics resources and would be beneficial to evaluating the user interface of interdisciplinary websites.