...
- Uncomfortable in using the commands and parameters to run a program, often forgets them
- Feels comfortable in filling in forms and selecting commands
- Looks up the command line help file to see how to run a program
- Wants to see command format, examples and possible caveats
- Wants to see the history of commands she ran in the past
3. X.
X. is currently primarily a computational biologist, but is also trained has a background in lab-bench biology. He has performed experiments before and is generally familiar with the needs of lab-bench biologists, but he himself rarely , if ever, performs experiments at present (but will in the future).
X.’s work involves writing scripts which analyze biological data. However, it is often the case that X.’s code must be run by lab-bench biologists who want to vary certain parameters within the script to fit their needs. These biologists often have little, if any, knowledge of scripting and command-line utilities. To mitigate this issue, X. often finds that he must explain the use of his scripts to the biologists, which can often be difficult given the knowledge gap. More frequently, though, it is the case that X. or other computational biologists within a lab are called on to run the scripts themselves with parameters modified to fit a particular biologist’s request. This is time-consuming for all involved and distracts X. from performing other work, such as writing new scripts for different tasks.
X. said that he would like to have some mechanism to present the functionality of a script he has written to lab-bench biologists in a way where he would not need to be consulted, especially at a time when he may have forgotten how to use that particular script. X. also said that right now each set of varied parameters for any particular script must be analyzed using another, separate script which invokes his original script. This means that many different scripts must be run, all of which are quite similar to one another. Furthermore, these jobs must be scheduled manuallyThese jobs which all use slightly varied parameters are tedious to schedule through the command line. To this end, X. said that he could greatly benefit from an interface to schedule batch jobs where he could specify sets of parameters to vary with each different job.
Finally, X. also agreed with V.’s assessment of the difficulty consolidating information about experiment protocols. X. said that the current method of combining handwritten notes is grossly inefficient and error-prone. Like V., X. would like to have some interface which provides an easy way to take shareable e-notes about particular experiment protocols with step-by-step instructions and comments from different team members about their experiences implementing that protocol.