Michigan Medicine Collaborator Hub

Project Background

The Collaborator Hub is a tool by the Fast Forward Medical Innovation Business Development (FFMI-BD) team that connects industry partners with U-M investigators. This searchable database allows collaborators to:

• Find faculty members with expertise that matches their needs
• Explore faculty-proposed project ideas
  
• Access information on available lab and clinical resources

The problem

Original Collaborator Hub

Key Problem Areas

• Not very intuitive or aesthetic to look at
• Hard to figure out how to filter for specific industry/faculty member
• Colors are very blue/yellow, can be hard to distinguish usability-wise
• Inconsistent box sizes affect accessibility
• Small Tableau dashboard that requires an excessive amount of scrolling

Redesign Goals

• Improve visual clarity and streamline navigation
• Enhance usability for a user-friendly collaboration tool

project details

Research Summary

• Defined Project Scope & Problem Statement: Established goals, scope, and identified key challenges
• Conducted Initial Benchmarking: Evaluated the current state of the Collaborator Hub
• Developed Interview Guide & Conducted User Interviews
• Completed Competitive Analysis: Assessed similar tools to identify best practices and opportunities
• Performed Heuristic Evaluation: Analyzed the Collaborator Hub’s usability and identified areas for enhancement

Key Stakeholders

• Primary Stakeholders: Michael and Shelby (administrators within the Fast Forward Medical Innovation Business Development)
• End Users: Faculty/investigators/users trying to collaborate with each other

User Goals and Needs

• Industry Partners:
  ○ Searching and finding relevant experts based on their industry needs
  ○ Easily find other faculty members
  ○ Explore faculty project ideas/locating and accessing resources
• UM-Investigators (experts):
  ○ Need an accurate representation of their expertise, project ideas, lab/clinical resources, other pertinent information

Functional Requirements

• Search Engine: Get rid of the spreadsheet, should easily give you the information for the specific experts/investigators
  ○ Filtering: allowing users to narrow down search criteria easily/quickly
• User-Friendly Interface: Interface should allow users to quickly and easily access the right information with minimal clicks/clear navigation
• More responsive: ensure that both web and mobile breakpoints are fully functional
• Aesthetics and Engagement: The system needs to engage users visually while still maintaining high functionality
  ○ Ensuring that users are not overwhelmed by too much information/poor navigation

Interview Guide

After meeting with our client, we developed an interview guide and began reaching out to internal team members, whose contact information was provided by our client. The goal was to gather feedback on making the tool more user-friendly and effective by discussing their experiences and suggestions on the FFMI-BD Collaborator Hub.

Link to Interview Guide

Competitive Analysis

We conducted a competitive analysis by selecting various competitors and comparators for the Collaborator Hub. Each team member chose a platform to research, focusing on features, user interface design, and functionality, to identify best practices and potential areas for improvement.

Link to Competitive Analysis

Competitive Analysis Objectives

• Identify Best Practices: Find effective design, navigation, and data presentation strategies for better usability.
• Highlight Differences: Note unique features that enhance competitor platforms and inspire improvements.
• Understand User Needs: Identify user expectations and issues to align our design with their needs.
• Assess Usability Standards: Check competitor usability and accessibility to set benchmarks for the Collaborator Hub.
• Inform Design Decisions: Apply insights to improve data clarity, collaboration, and functionality in Collaborator Hub.

Summary of Findings

• LinkedIn: One of the key strengths of LinkedIn is its advanced search and filtering options, like location and job type filters that are logically grouped. The UI is clean and accessible, with good use of contrast and readability, and collaboration features like messaging and groups are very effective. One thing we might consider is incorporating similar engagement-based filters and elements that promote professional networking.
• Github: clean design, customizable with light and dark modes, top nav bar was pretty intuitive for users to switch from different tabs, breadcrumb trails for indications to starting point to the end point, gives members optiosn and flexibility and code issues and code request
• Academia.edu: filters for topics, filters for authors and language, UI interface was clean but aesthetic was a bit outdated – to text heavy (words on each system when filtering, not enough whitespace), good profile overview for authors (individual profiles might work out), messaging system between researchers, people can add their personal websites as well
• ResearchGate: had to go through each page one by one was inconveniencing, website has good and consistent design (font, color, and formatting) made it easy to understand/navigate the site, for data display: had profiles (who people work with, their publications, citations), misconception that you have to be in that field to access the resources – make it accessible to everyone

Heuristic Evaluation

Link to Heuristic Evaluation

We performed a heuristic evaluation using Jakob Nielsen's 10 Usability Heuristics to assess the current Collaborator Hub. By analyzing the tool against these principles, we identified usability issues and provided recommendations for potential improvements to improve the user experience.

Team Meeting Findings

Challenges/Constraints

• Filter system: may be a little difficult with the amount of filters we will have to try/go through
• Data accuracy/completeness
• Amount of information: ensuring it is aesthetic and not overwhelming for users to navigate
• Access to Users: no financial incentives, how many participants will we be able to recruit
• Time constraint: a semester-long project with a deliverable due to the client/UMSI ELO office by the end

Success Criteria

• Overall traffic on the site, does it increase as a result
• Ease of use/search effectiveness: Time it takes for users to navigate to find a faculty member they’re looking for
  ○ Baseline time it takes to complete the interaction vs. time it takes to complete the same interaction after our redesign
• Client-feedback is considered and included throughout the entirety of the design and design process
• Aesthetic appeal

Team Tasks

observations

Research Summary Findings

• Simplify Faculty Descriptions
  ○ Replace confusing technical jargon with clear, user-friendly language
  ○ Highlight each faculty member's specialization for better clarity
• Improve Navigation
  ○ Use static, clearly labeled buttons for consistency
  ○ Add a “Clear All Filters” option to enhance user control
• Streamline Filters and Scrolling
  ○ Reorganize filters with a clear visual hierarchy
  ○ Remove unnecessary options to reduce clutter
• Layout and Space
  ○ Prioritize key content and minimize excessive scrolling
  ○ Break information into subpages for better organization
  ○ Ensure instructions are visible, concise, and easy to follow