HGNC informatics
Web statistics, releases & development
Kristian Gray
Contents
- Web statistics
- UX testing of Beta site + improvements
- Social media & reaching out
- Utilising third party productivity tools
- HTTP to HTTPS
Web statistics
All statistics were collected by Google Analytics between Nov 1, 2016 - Oct 31, 2017
Number of users
↑8% over the 12 month period
User behaviour
Uptake of the new gene families is steadily increasing.
Who are our biggest referrers?
year-on-year increase in the number of sessions. Google, bookmarks & Ensembl referrals on the increase.
Most popular cross reference links
- Outer ring: 2017
- Middle ring: 2016
- Inner ring: 2015
Users like to link off to UniProt from our gene symbol reports. The proportion each year don't change much except for OMIM which has increased each year.
User locations
- Outer ring: 2017
- Middle ring: 2016
- Inner ring: 2015
As expected most of our users are from the USA. For most region there isn't a noticeable increase in the demographic proportions apart from an increase of UK users.
Devices used to view genenames.org?
86% ↑ in the use of mobile devices since 2015. After the release of our new site we expect another large increase in mobile use.
UX testing & improvements
Background
The Web Dev team provided UX consultancy to the HGNC team to help evaluate an updated and mobile first version of the genenames.org website.
Usability evaluations were conducted with some representative users. General usage, context and motivations were explored.
Participants
- 6 MOD curators
- NCBI RefSeq Genome Curator
- ICR London - Research Development Manager
- 1 Software Developer, prev Sanger
- 2 Ensembl Annotation team devs
Methods
Remote usability evaluation using Skype+Goto meeting to allow screen sharing; face to face interviews on campus with software developers
Participants were asked to:
- Describe their roles
- Demonstrate how they normally use the HGNC website
- Try out the new website with another example (or an example of what they’re working on at the moment or recently)
Positive outcome
- The website similar to the old website and users were happy about that.
- The layout and design of the screens was pleasing for users.
- Participants appreciated the additional resources.
- Our downloads were mentioned as a valuable resource.
Seems less clunky”
The filter panel of the left of the search result page is better and it's the first thing I see”
This is the kind of stuff you wanna see”
Downloads - that’s one of the best designed ones we use”
Suggested changes
Homepage
Before
What the report said:
- The homepage did not have the word ‘Human’ anywhere.
- A brand concern - it would be beneficial to address different types of visitors, and have an ”Elevator-Pitch kind of message/statement on homepage about the invaluable service provided”. Since people are also aware of the service being up-to-date, you can also have a Last updated on
After
Gene symbol reports
Before
What the report said:
-
Reorder the information within the orange box
- Move the gene name next to the symbol.
- Label locus type within the box
- Mention that the Homolog predictions are from HCOP
- Change the Homolog section of the report to curated homologs
*(SAB question 14) - Move the ? icons next to the word
After
Gene family reports
Before
What the report said:
- + icon is confusing. Replace with arrow heads and move to the right
- Hierarchy map - Allow users to click the nodes to expand the map instead of having to click the tooltips.
After
Search
Before
What the report said:
- Label the filters as "Filter by"
- Change the page type to just say "Gene / Family / Page" and support those visually
After
Social media
Since this summer (2017) we have decided to engage more with twitter by increasing our tweet and retweet rates. This has been rewarded with a noticeable increase in followers.
We have in the past had many emails asking for help on how to retrieve data etc. YouTube videos are easier to follow than text instructions especially for non-native english speakers.
Why do we want to create a blog?
- User engagement
- Forum to discuss specific issues
- Not on the EBI servers so we can notify users about service disruptions etc
Releasing useful code to the community to promote the team and our resources.
Utilising third party productivity tools
Why are we using them?
- With flexible, modern work patterns many people work from home.
- In the past it would have been difficult for team members to engage in active discussions and meeting.
- With third party productivity/communication tools, team members working off site can attend meetings and take part in team discussions.
- Allows us to communicate with each other in a chat room format.
- Great for discussions especially with off-site colleague, and the discussion is recorded.
- Slack allows us to be more transparent within the team. This helps communication and allows team members to either interject, ask a question, or for individuals to plan their work around what was being done.
- JIRA ia an issue tracking application that provides bug tracking, task tracking & project management functions.
- Allows priorities to be set on tasks.
- Aids in requester/assignee communication.
- Plugs into Slack to notify of status changes and ticket creation.
- Video conferencing web application that allows us to conduct team meetings with colleagues who are working off-site.
- Offers screen sharing capabilities; useful for showing documents, charts and webpages.
HTTPS
What is HTTPS?
The "s" within HTTPS stands for "SSL" (Secure Sockets Layer).
This technology encrypts your connection to our website, so that hackers can't intercept any of your data.
Why have we moved to HTTPS?
- All data transfers are encrypted.
- Browsers warn that HTTP sites are insecure & highlight secure HTTPS site.
- Search engine services such as Google weight HTTPS sites higher than HTTP sites.
- HTTPS sites are faster than HTTP. HTTP vs HTTPS
- Sites using HTTPS cannot make AJAX requests to our HTTP REST service ("Mixed content" error). Stopped some clinical services from easily displaying our data within their resources.
Implementation
Normally the certificate is placed on the web servers. A free certificate can be created but these certificates need to be recreated regularly using a cron script.
Within the EBI the certificate must be on the traffic manager controlled by the EBI web production team and must be purchased from GoDaddy.
Cost
- Need a certificate to protect all subdomains (i.e *.genenames.org)
-
This mean we need a standard SSL DV certificate costing £178.99/yr.
- USD $100,000 warranty
- Covers:
- www.genenames.org / hgnc.genenames.org
- vertebrate.genenames.org / vgnc.genenames.org
- beta.genenames.org
- rest.genenames.org
- biomart.genenames.org
- herd.genenames.org
- pace.genenames.org