The Client –Biotech Lab Equipment Manufactuer
SSI's client is developing a patent pending platform for single molecule identification and digital quantification. The system uniquely barcodes individual target molecules, scans them, and delivers a literal inventory of target molecules in the biological sample. The biotechnology application is used by medical professionals and scientists for laboratory analysis of molecules.
Two components of the technology were a “scanner”, which processes up to 72 samples, and a “robot”, which instructs users on how to place samples for scanning and how to conduct tests.
Skills
C# .NET, Photoshop CS3, Visual Studio 2005 for XPe, and Visual Sourcesafe.
The Task - Create a GUI Touch Screen Front End to Setup the Scanner and Robot for DNA Sampling
Solution – A Visually Appealing Design with a Small File Size
The GUI design for this touch screen application graphically displays the test tubes, allows for labeling of the tubes and enables the user to initiate the imaging process. Resizing the graphic buttons and utilizing text overlays kept the application file size small. The buttons and selection text were designed to be large enough and spaced apart enough for a finger touch to work properly.
While tests were running, the application shows test progress and any errors encountered along the way.
A file browsing control was added to open a custom .cdf, “cartridge definition file”, on a USB device, and to save test results to the hardware. Initially, the file browsing control was setup to ignore known file extensions. The idea was for the file browser to only recognize the custom test files. Coincidentally, another file type with the same file extension also existed, a “channel definition file”, causing the custom channel definition file to be ignored too. A workaround was created.
With requirements in flux, the client was pleasantly surprised with the progress and the quick turnaround on the application.
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