UX research and design for high-performance computing at Harvard

I was involved in multiple projects related to improving access and services related to providing high-performance computing at Harvard. Work on the Sid project for IQSS led to multiple collaborations.

Sid is the name of a new platform for social scientists to access high-performance computing resources. It was designed to address barriers to access and use while providing fast and reliable computing resources.

Sid evolved from an internally-designed application to one developed using Open On Demand. I led user research and design of a new user-facing system including components that have been adopted by and incorporated into core open source code.

Short paper describing this work presented at PEARC23, Practice and Experience in Advances Research Computing, sponsored by the ACM.

Harvard Business School was a stakeholder for research for SID. Our ongoing conversations led to HBS adopting the conceptual user framework we defined for their computing platform.

Work on both projects for IQSS and HBS is proceeding based on my UX research and leadership.

Activities:

• Research: lead & oversee research with users (multiple rounds and stakeholders)

• UX: Analysis and framework definition

• UX & Service design: Lead user flow definition across systems/touchpoints

• UX & Service design: Lead content planning across systems/touchpoints

• UI: Lead designs for interfaces

• Art direction: Research and define brief for the product logo and identity. Oversee and approve visual work

• Product management: Serve as interim product manager on SID.

Research on this multi-year project included interviews with researchers across schools, and stakeholders from Harvard Business School, Faculty of Arts & Sciences and the School of Engineering and Sciences. I led contextual inquiry sessions to understand a variety of researchers’ processes, barriers, and needs and UX & UI work, including developing a framework for success criteria based on our research and survey of technical platform capabilities. I worked on multiple design efforts simultaneously; working with the service delivery and development team to prototype, deliver improved service and onboarding guidance, conducting ongoing research and defining user experience for a next-generation version for future iteration.

Research with Harvard Business School computing led to collaboration. HBS is currently using the conceptual model developed by research assistant Maya Chatila and myself in the design and development of their advanced research computing environment application.