intermine / intermine/bluegenes

Possible QB improvements?

Open
#198 2 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
Discussion Query Builder UI/UX
Dominant language
Clojure
Stars
75
Forks
59
PR merge metrics
No merged PRs in 30d

Description

Following some user testing (experienced biologist, new to InterMine) on the query builder, a few thoughts:

1. Can we make filters more obvious? While testing, one user comfortably added gene name to the QB but couldn't figure out how to enter which gene they wanted to see.
2. The user built a sane query but searched for a gene symbol under the gene _name_ field. This prompts two thoughts:
- Should we default to `lookup` rather than `=` for filters? It would be easier for naive users, but what other implications are there?
- An advanced typeahead facility could _tell_ you info about the id you've just type - e.g. "this is a uniprot identifier" or "this is a protein" or so on. This is slightly different from the search simple because it's inline in a QB and therefore needs to be more domain specific - returning a publication in a typeahead for a gene might not make sense, but returning a symbol in a primary gene id field *would* make sense.
4. The examples worked *really nicely* to give the user an idea of how to use the QB (excepting perhaps the filters...)

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

Start by reviewing the query builder’s filter controls and examples, then trace how filter operators and gene-field input are handled. Confirm the user-testing observations before defining scope for filter visibility, default lookup behavior, or domain-specific typeahead. Done requires an agreed design and corresponding query-builder changes with coverage for the chosen behavior.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
clojure
Domain
frontend
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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