BCCVL – improving user experience: a road less travelled

User experience (UX) seeks to improve consumer’s attitudes towards a product/service. UX encompasses the complete experience of a product or service by utilising good user interface, marketing, user support and other collateral.

Often in eResearch applications and services, UX and marketing is overlooked in the effort to develop increased functionality. This is despite the relatively low cost of implementing good UX, targeted marketing and the positive impact that this has on user uptake and acceptance via the user’s perception of professionalism and legitimacy. This is particularly pertinent for the sector as it is increasingly compared with services offered by commercial enterprises.

This presentation will deliver a model for developing a good user experience for eResearch tools and services that focus on the elements seldom employed, namely visual design, branding, marketing and advertising. The model will be explained using the Biodiversity and Climate Change Virtual Laboratory (BCCVL) as a case study and highlight improvement in total user experience through a 6 pronged attack using functionality, usability, visual design, branding, marketing, and advertising. It will showcase practical examples of

• Rebranding;
• Website redevelopment;
• Application usability and visual design audit;
• Identifying the target market;
• Understanding the roadblocks;
• Advertising methods to elicit behavioural change.

The BCCVL is a “one stop modelling shop” that simplifies the process of biodiversity and climate change modelling. It is an online portal that offers a series of biological, environmental and climate change datasets that ecologists can use across a number of experiments to explore, investigate and accelerate biodiversity and climate change research, which was not previously possible without access to high-performance computers.

Kelly Lennon and Hamish Holewa
Griffith University and Project Manager, Biodiversity and Climate Change Virtual Laboratory