UI ideas for selecting datasets

[d2fong]

@dwitvliet I randomly thought of some rough ideas for how UI might look when you start adding more datasets.
Main ideas:

• Split up comparisons into two use cases:
  1. A user may want to specifically compare across development
  2. A user may want to compare a dataset to a few others or compare a dataset to the stable/variable connections list
• In case 1, I assume that the dataset ids are less important and moreso the developmental stage and location of the dataset (thoughts on whether you think this is the case?)
• in case 2, I assume the dataset ids are important -- e.g. the user knows the particular dataset out of the many that they want to compare (Thoughts on whether you think this is the case? Based off of experience of what Mona needs for her analysis)

These are assumptions that could be wrong, feedback would be appreciated.

[dwitvliet]

I love the drawings!

I think we have to assume that the user knows nothing about the dataset id, and not much about what datasets are available. We also have to assume that different users would care about different datasets. Some would care about comparing across developmental stages. Some would care about comparing across sex. Some care about comparing across species (assuming we have more than one). And the majority probably only care about seeing that one good adult hermaphrodite that they can use to explain their functional data. Optimally, it should be easy for all users to get the datasets they are looking for.

How about some mix of the two. E.g. at first you list all datasets (similar to your first picture, but without the author), and then you have options to filter by: age, sex, species, and coverage. If you click "Age", you get some developmental timeline showing all datasets that you can easily pick from; if you click "Sex", you get all datasets by different sexes, etc (basically your bottom picture).

What is probably most difficult is making it intuative, so it's clear to any user how to navigate it and how to keep track of what filters are applied, and how filters narrow the datasets down. I'm thinking we might draw inspiration from websites selling computers (e.g. BestBuy), where you can filter by brand, color, RAM, etc.

[d2fong]

Ok I will iterate on the designs when I have the time. The drawings were made with draw.io its pretty easy to use to make quick mockups.

[d2fong]

Ok here is another version of the concept as a demo. It's not functional but it gives an idea of what it could be like:
https://7xw9s.csb.app/