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The increasingly important role of big data in organisational decisionmaking brings with it significant challenges in terms of designing usable software interfaces. Specifically, such interfaces must allow users to explore, analyse, and visualise complex data from heterogeneous sources and derive insights to support management decisions. This paper describes a usability evaluation of the MIDAS Project, a big data platform for health policy-making, developed by an EUfunded Horizon 2020 project involving a number of international partners and pilot sites. We describe how a combination of heuristic and formative user-centred evaluation methods were employed, and give a summary of the key findings. We discuss key insights from the evaluation, including the importance of having diverse users, the role played by users' prior expectations, and the logistical challenge of coordinating user testing across multiple sites. Finally, we explore the relative value of each of the evaluation methods, and outline how our approach to usability testing will evolve for future iterations of the MIDAS platform.

Sharing data is often a risk in terms of security and privacy especially if the data is sensitive. Algorithms can be used to generate synthetic data from an original raw dataset in order to share data that are considered more 'privacy preserving', and that increase the level of anonymity. In this paper, we carry out an experiment to study the validity of conducting machine learning on synthetic data. We compare the evaluation metrics produced from machine learning models that were trained using synthetic data with metrics yielded from machine learning models that were trained using the corresponding real data.

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This paper outlines the scope and aims of the MIDAS Project, a Horizon 2020-funded initiative to develop a data analytics platform to support better policy-making in the European health sector. It focuses specifically on the engagement of users in the co-design of the platform, and describes a participatory workshop which encouraged stakeholders to share their understanding of the problem to be addressed and insights into potential solutions. The major elements of the workshop are described and the key results are presented. Participant feedback is analysed and the main lessons and insights are highlighted, including the importance of an adopting an iterative approach to user engagement in software design and development.