Today, lab software productivity is less about computing power and more about user-friendliness and integration. As Moore’s Law predicted, our computers can process orders of magnitude more than even a decade ago. But putting more transistors on a chip isn’t all that’s making modern lab workers more productive: new business models, system architectures and software delivery models play major roles too. Cloud computing and infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) have lowered the costs of accessing computing power so today it’s more about the idea, not the infrastructure to operationalise it.
These days we are much more discerning about user interfaces and usability: we expect our laboratory software to behave as intuitively as our smartphones. Intuitive software is useful software and users will require little encouragement to make it central to their daily regimen. Equally important, well-designed software is a stabilising constant in a workplace that is increasingly marked by turnover and change. Staff may leave and projects may transition but an informatics system never loses track – from workflows to SOPs, it helps new staff adapt and ensures people and processes achieve maximum productivity.