Award-winning research software succeeds by adopting user conventions rather than imposing designer preferences.
Researchers in cell therapy laboratories have developed color-coding systems over years of practice. Color-coding conventions represent accumulated wisdom about tracking complex experiments. When Livia Stevenin and the design team at Buildo created Viva Cyte for biotechnology company Cellply, they made a decision that reveals something profound about enterprise software design: they incorporated existing laboratory color-coding conventions rather than imposing a new visual language. The platform, which earned a Silver A' Design Award in Interface, Interaction and User Experience Design, demonstrates that respecting domain expertise often matters more than asserting design authority. Viva Cyte supports cell therapy development through two integrated applications, one for managing biological tests and another for extracting analytical insights. The architecture reflects deep respect for how researchers actually think and work.
The dual-platform architecture separating experiment configuration from data analysis addresses a subtle truth about cognitive workflows. Setting up experiments requires careful, methodical verification. Analyzing results requires exploratory pattern recognition. Configuration and analysis modes benefit from interfaces optimized for their specific requirements. Biotech enterprises investing in research software frequently encounter monolithic systems that compromise both activities by forcing everything into a single interface. The Viva Cyte approach emerged from over two years of intensive user research, including shadowing biologists in laboratories and conducting User Journey Mapping workshops with development teams. The resulting software includes features like printable reference maps and guided setup walkthroughs that emerged directly from observing common error patterns. Enterprises developing specialized domain software can learn that separating distinct cognitive activities into coordinated systems often produces better outcomes than consolidating everything into unified platforms.
The strategic lesson from Viva Cyte extends beyond biotechnology software. When designers invest time understanding how domain experts already work, they discover conventions worth preserving and pain points worth addressing. Software that feels like a natural extension of existing workflows gains adoption more readily than software demanding users adapt to designer preferences. What accumulated wisdom exists in your organization that your next software project should respect?
