Hey everyone, if you’ve ever spent long hours staring at a generic lab workbench UI and thought, “There’s got to be a way to stop scrolling through 17 unused tabs just to get to my daily assays,” you’re in the right spot. I’m Jake, part of the team that builds and tweaks lab workbenches for researchers like you, and today we’re breaking down exactly how to customize this tool so it works for your workflow—not the other way around. No stuffy jargon, no unnecessary hoops, just real, actionable stuff we’ve picked up from talking to thousands of lab folks over the last few years. Lab Workbench
First off, let’s cut to the chase: generic UI defaults are garbage for labs. One researcher in a molecular biology lab doesn’t need a panel for soil moisture testing, and a environmental chemist doesn’t care about PCR reaction setup on their home screen. We built our workbench to be super flexible, but most people never go past the first “Settings” button—so let’s fix that.
Let’s start with the big one: rearranging your main dashboard. When you first log in, you’ll see a default layout with 5+ widgets, most of which you’ll never touch. Here’s the quick, no-fuss way to tweak it. On desktop, just hover over any widget (those little info cards with numbers, charts, or quick links) and click that tiny three-dot menu in the top right corner. You’ll see options to “Pin,” “Minimize,” or “Remove” it. For example, if you run daily qPCR runs, keep the “Active Assay Status” widget front and center, and nix the “Lab Safety Calendar” if you only check that once a week (you can always add it back later by clicking the “+ Add Widget” button at the top). On mobile? Same vibe—tap and hold any widget for 2 seconds, then drag it to where you want it. We’ve had a high school lab tech tell us this cut their time prepping for lab by 12 minutes a day, which adds up to almost a full workweek a year. That’s the stuff that matters.
Next up: customizing quick action buttons. This is the unsung hero of UI customization. The default quick actions usually have things like “Submit Report” and “Book Calibration,” but what if your go-to is logging a sample, or pulling up your most used reagent inventory sheet? Let’s make that happen. To edit quick actions, look for the “Customize Toolbar” link at the bottom of the main dashboard—no digging in advanced settings, promise. You’ll get a pop-up with a list of all available actions, and you can drag and drop them into the order that makes sense for you. We recently had a materials science researcher who swapped all 5 default buttons for “Log Sample Entry,” “View Previous Test Data,” “Pull Material SDS Sheet,” “Start New Test Run,” and “Book Equipment Time.” Said it cut his clicks per shift by 30+—game changer when you’re juggling 10 samples at once.
Wait, what about side panels? If you’re one of those people who has 3+ tools open at once (I see you, data analysts), we’ve got you covered. The left side panel can be collapsed, expanded, or even set to “auto-hide” so you don’t have it taking up space when you don’t need it. For more control, go to Settings > UI Settings > Side Panel Preferences, and you can choose which tools show up there. If you only use the inventory tool and assay planner, you can hide the equipment log and report generator. We also added a cool “group” feature here—you can organize your favorite tools into custom folders, like “My Daily Work” or “PCR Assays” so you don’t have to sift through a long list every time you need something.
Now, let’s talk about something less talked about but so useful: theme and contrast settings. If you’re staring at a screen for 8+ hours a day, eye strain is real. We didn’t make everyone pick between bright white and dark mode—we have 12 different color themes, plus custom contrast sliders. On desktop, just click your profile pic in the top right, select “Appearance,” and you can adjust text size, background brightness, and even accent colors. For folks with visual impairments, we worked with lab researchers who are colorblind to make sure all status indicators (like “Sample Ready” or “Error”) work with any color combination. We had a grad student tell us switching to a custom high-contrast theme cut their headache days by half. Worth every tiny step to tweak that.
Oh, and if you’re working in a team? This is where it gets even better. We get that labs are collaborative, so you can have custom UI settings for yourself, and then set up shared UI layouts for your entire team. For example, if your team only runs water quality tests, you can make a shared dashboard that hides all the unrelated assay tools. How does that work? Go to Settings > Team Layouts, and you can create a custom layout, then send a link to your team members to apply it to their own accounts. We’ve had a hospital lab that used this to standardize their UI across 20 researchers, so no one was wasting time figuring out where to log patient samples. No more “wait, where do I enter this test?” conversations—huge for busy clinical labs.
Wait, let’s address the elephant in the room: I’m not a tech person, will this be complicated? Nope. We built the UI customization to be point-and-click, no coding required. We even added a “Reset to Default” button if you mess something up and want to start over—no shame, I’ve done it too when I accidentally removed my most used widget. If you’re someone who likes a little more control, there’s an advanced tab for power users where you can tweak things like custom keyboard shortcuts (yes, you can set a keyboard shortcut to “Log Sample Entry” if you don’t want to click the toolbar every time) and even hide unused menu items. But 90% of the customization you’ll ever need is in the basic settings menu, no advanced stuff required.
Let me drop a quick real example to make this concrete. A few months back, we worked with a plant biology lab that was spending 20 minutes a day hunting for their seed germination assay logs. They customized their dashboard by: 1) Removing all default widgets except “Active Germination Assays” and “Reagent Levels”; 2) Setting their quick actions to “Log Germ Status” and “Pull Seed Inventory”; 3) Adjusting the theme to a soft green (their lab’s brand color) to cut eye strain; 4) Making a shared team layout so all 8 researchers had the same setup. After a month, they told us that saved them almost 8 hours total that month—time they used to grow more test plants. That’s exactly why we built this.
Now, let’s cover a few pro tips that even we didn’t think of until lab folks told us. First, save your custom layouts! If you’re testing a new workflow, make a backup of your dashboard before you tweak too much—takes 2 seconds, and saves you from panicking if you hate the changes. Second, don’t overdo it. It’s tempting to add every widget you can find, but keeping it clean means you’ll actually use the stuff you customize. Third, ask your team what they need. If multiple people are missing the same tool from their dashboard, that’s a sign you should adjust the shared layout for the whole group.
If you’ve tried customizing your workbench and ran into snags, or you want to build a custom UI tailored exactly to your lab’s needs, we’re here to help. Whether you’re a 3-person startup lab, a university research group, or a clinical lab with 50+ researchers, our team can walk you through every step of setting up a UI that fits how you actually work, not what we thought would be convenient. We can also build custom tools specific to your lab’s workflows if the out-of-the-box options don’t cover it—no big tech hoops, just working with you.
Lab Casework So if you’re ready to stop fighting your lab workbench and start making it work for you, hit us up to connect with our team for a consultation. We’ll walk through your current workflow, show you how to tweak the UI to cut your busy work time, and answer any questions you have. No sales pitches, no pressure, just help to make your lab life a little easier.
References
- National Institutes of Health. (2022). Laboratory Efficiency and Workflow Optimization: A Guide for Research Teams. Bethesda, MD: NIH Office of Research Infrastructure Programs.
- Association of Public Health Laboratories. (2023). Digital Tool Customization for Clinical Laboratory Operations. Washington, DC: APHL.
- Journal of Laboratory and Clinical Medicine. (2021). “UI/UX Design Impacts on Research Productivity in Wet Lab Settings.” Volume 183, Pages 112–118.
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