LabFriend – Laboratory Assistant for User-Friendly Metadata Management

In laboratories, quick and accurate capture of (meta)data generated in experiments is essential for advancing knowledge and future exploitation. Ideally, this data is collected in electronic lab notebooks (ELNs). Here, free text input poses significant challenges: It is time-consuming, error-prone, and requires researchers to step away from their tasks.

We present LabFriend: a laboratory metadata input assistant, enhancing ELNs with semantically structured data to facilitate data input. First, a text entry assistance feature providing suggestions reduces the time spent filling out forms, minimizes errors, and ensures consistent terminology usage. Second, voice input eliminates communication barriers with the ELN and enables metadata capture hands-free. The software will be stand-alone and integrated into multiple ELNs. LabFriend fosters FAIR (meta)data with increased volume and fewer errors, while advancing the adoption, accessibility, and effectiveness of ELNs in laboratory work.

LabFriend is a joint project between the Helmholtz Centres DLR and Hereon funded within the HMC Project Cohort 2024.