Structures of life
Dhaval Vyas, Olga Kulyk, Paul van der Vet, Anton Nijholt, Gerrit C. van der Veer · 2008
The visual and multidimensional representations like images and graphical structures related to biology provide great insights into understanding the complexities of different organisms. Especially, life scientists use different representations of molecular structures to answer biological questions and to better understand cellular processes. Combining results from two field studies, we explore the role of molecular structures in life scientists’ current work from a human-factors perspective. Our main conclusion is that different representations of molecular structures, due to their visual nature, are important for supporting collaboration, constructing new knowledge and supporting scientists’ professional activities in general.