ResearchHub
Research-Hub is a research collaboration and sharing tool developed by integrating the vision of the INF project funded by DFG.
The platform has been designed based on fieldwork (since 2016) run in several contexts: Socio-informatics Insititute, SFB1187, HCI Master Program, and EUSSET.
Methods
Focus group
Semistructured Interview
Observation & Survey
Participatory Design
Heuristic Evaluation
Usability Test
Iterative design
End-user
Interdisciplinary researcher
Student
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Duration
Nov. 2017- Sep. 2021
Role
Team:
3 research associate,
1 technical support,
5 research assistant
User Research
Manage Design Tasks
UX/UI design​
Why we support the research community?
Past Design Cases are sealed in Repositories
Design researchers estimated that only "one-third of data has been published and used"
“... no one has any time to look at those data, ... I haven’t checked for like a year, so it is like a treasure set of data.”
Lack space for cross-project sharing and collabration
"…we do not know what each other are doing"
“We don’t collaborate together. Everyone is just basically doing their own things.”
Call for open-sharing vs.
Pressure of sharing
“…in this consortium agreement, we defined that not everything will be published, data will be handled with care and will not be disclosed.”
“Have you considered that other researchers could use my data for their own publications?"
Design Context
The Challenges
Due to the lack of knowledge sharing, documented data and professional experience remain personal.
ResearchHub is designed for interdisciplinary researchers, who are varied in educational background, using tools, research methods, and standpoint of sharing.
Our goal is to enable sharing and collaboration across projects to achieve organizational objectives by making the best use of knowledge.
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Multiple stakeholders evolved (industry partners, administrative staff, and project participants, etc.)
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Interdisciplinary end-users​
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Researchers hold a skeptical attitude on sharing:
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Data privacy and sensitivity
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The pressure of publishing 'hot data'
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Time restriction for organizing data
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Lack of incentives for sharing
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Complex and undefined data ownership
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Design Outcomes
925 Europe researchers
& 132 spaces
The platform is appropriated internally in the SI Insititute and SFB Community, however, constantly we receive proposals from users outside. the community and user groups are expanding (teachers and students from outside, participates and partners from projects, EUSSET research community, etc.)
And the online drive function is cooperating with Sciebo team (repository tool for NRW University).
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Motivated end-user in daily collaboration and sharing
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23 projects migrate to our platform voluntarily
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HCI Master program has been managed through the platform.
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Researchers use it to manage the teaching tasks and curate teaching materials
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EUSSET community use it to manage their conference
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And information starts to flow across projects and communities.
DESIGN QUESTION
How do we encourage interdisciplinary researchers better collaborate and share?
Pre-study
Discover problems in the research community
Thematic Analysis with two researchers
Key Findings
Design reqiurements
"Why should I share"
“Not another tool!” -- too many tools
Researchers have its own tools-sets, the project has its mechanism
Classified issues in three levels:
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Support project management
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Support data management
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An intergrade space adapt flexible using habits
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A public space for communication cross projects
Design
Participatory Design, wireframing, prototyping, and iterative testing
I organised several internal design workshops to discuss the discovered design problems and challenges. Those discussion initiated the design ideas.
We recruited 6 end-users, demonstrated our primary empirical findings. End-users raised new issues by reflecting on the findings and new ideas(eg. transparency and workload)
The design team(1 researcher and 2 students) created a persona and a storyboard to elaborate on the design context, design problems, and design ideas. We bring it to developers and align our initiations with them.
The design ideas have been adapted into a system structure and the design team built the wireframe together.
Based on the wireframe, we(designers) start the prototyping process: 1.paper prototyping 2.heuristic evaluation 3.redesign and digital prototyping
The prototype has been brought to 6 end-user and tested with the thinking aloud method to identify the usability issues(learnability, efficiency, memorability, errors, satisfaction). And we constantly improve prototype base on the received user feedbacks.
Address issues in three levels
Personal level
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Project level
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Community level
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What am I doing？ Who is related?
What we have done?
What is happening around?
Profile & Tag cloud
Project Workspace
Institutional Workspace
What is happening around?
Community Level: Sharing space
Social networking space
A shared repository in community
Community events
Support discussion and knowledge exchanging
Share design cases: an overview base on the timeline
What we have done? & "No more tools"
Project level: An centralized repository space without changing working habits
Idea 01: Drive-Based
Idea 02: Project-Based
After test with users
What am I doing?
Personal level: profile with personal research interest and activities
Personal profile with tag cloud
Expanded view with people related interests
Editing personal interests
Who is related?
Personal level: matching with other researchers' profile
Member List
Other member's profile with tag cloud
Matching research interests
people has related interest in platform
Matching result
Unexpected changes:
Re-Development and re-design(2nd version)
Limitation of development resource in academic environment
Develop with an open-sourced and customizable platform - Humhub
Develop with an open-sourced and customizable platform - Humhub
Design and Develop three levels within Humhub:
Original platform has no levels
Build a three-level architecture:
Centralized repository: a new module -- Online-drive:
Share
Login in with drive accounts
Select files that share with the level
Visualize the data source
Data owner/creator
Comments
Calendar with filters
Download and upload events
colouring classified events from levels
Filter events with selections
Profile (under development)
Current Version: stream with recent activities, basic information and personal files
extracted from daily activities and personal data, please details in the DesignCaser project.
Future vision: add research interests
Appropriation in the real-field
Test with researchers in their daily practice
Usability Test with users
Design Outcomes
"not another tool" -- Online-drive function is popular and addressed the problem of scattered tools
"Lack of incentive for sharing"--People start to share data with a simple click and to gain community visibility
"Group awareness"-- platform foster different levels of sharing and collaboration
"Adhesiveness of user" -- established an ecosystem with offline activity by providing record tools and information.
Ongoing Re-design
Usability problem:
- UI and information display
- Clearness of visibility and access rights
- Tutorials for new users
New functions:
- New repository API to Online-drive function, e.g. Dropbox and OneDrive
- Support data sharing and curating(see DesignCaser project)
Take away
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Interdisciplinary collaboration is key for developing a functional product, and co-design with the team helped people know about “why this” and accelerate the communication and the implementation process.
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Design is not only about creating something new, it is also a negotiated result of group collaboration and resources.
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Always listen to what others say about the platform and jump out of the self-fixed mindset
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The online activities are tightly connected with offline events, migrate contents from offline could motivate users to engage with the platform and cultivate their use habits.
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Testing is not only gain users' feedback, it is also an activity that engaging with users and building a reliable relationship.
Meet The Team
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Volker Wulf
Head of Lehrstuhl Wirtschaftsinformatik und Neue Medien in University of Siegen
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Volkmar Pipek
Head of Lehrstuhl Computer Supported Cooperative Work
and Social Media in University of Siegen
Qinyu Li
Designer and HCI Researcher,
PhD student
Gaia Mosconi
User Researcher and social scientist, PhD student
Nico Vitt
Computer scientist and HCI researcher, PhD student
Nathanael Klein,
Computer scientist ,
technical staff