Bioinformatics software, shifting to mobility

Abstract

Mobile devices are pervading all the work environments with such swiftness that makes past decades of computerization appear lethargic. Even so, porting previous desktop applications is not always possible or of practical use, needing a whole reexamination of their user interface model. Software for Bioinformatics adds further issues: lack of standards in formats, mixed alternatives on the treatment of data, huge data-sizes, difficulty of output representation, which makes simpler interactive environment as are touch interfaces, struggle to reach a bare basic level of practical utility. Prove of that is near all the currently available Bioinformatics apps for mobile platforms, over 50, are either educative, or target only one simple action, typically a blast on a short local sequence. In spite of all of that, a careful design, based on continuous user testing, and sensible goals, is paying us more than acceptable results. To start with, we had real useful desktop applications, based on open workflows that could fundamentally be modeled easily as the user needed different treatment for their data. We took the essentials of this open perspective, as none of the currently available mobile software is worth its use except in rather particular conditions, and only the simplest processes are available. Our approach is more ambitious as it leaves open the process you can do to your data. You have hundreds of them at a single touch. The interface is continuously being fine tuned as more user testing adds real usability information.