Comments on: Usability? Why Would Business Intelligence Be Different?

By: Mubshir Hayat

Mubshir Hayat — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 05:53:19 +0000

A good article!
For the first point, I tend to agree with simplicity for users. However, BI users are assumed to know what data means and what operations/manipulations they need to perform on it
My take on the second point is that priority should always be on what information a user wants followed by how it is represented to him. Technical folk (me being one myself) generally tend to focus more on what we think the user wants adding in features that may look good or are complex to implement but may not necessarily add value to the user.

By: Meenal Iyer

Meenal Iyer — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 16:08:19 +0000

Very interesting article. I agree,usability is key if we want the DW to drive the business. However,I think there is more about having the right information shown and be made accessible than necessarily work on the look on a dashboard, more my opinion than general since that’s how my users like it.

By: Jean-Michel Franco

Jean-Michel Franco — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 11:50:30 +0000

Interesting.
This makes me think of a current experience I have. I’m currently deep diving into a tool for Mobile called RoamBI, and what is specific in it is that the user interface is pretty standardized : you have to match your data to the predefined proposed views (called Cardex, Catlist, Pieview…). So at first time, as a developer, it seem very restrictive. But the benefit is that there a consistent user interface for the user and that it takes into the consideration the topics you are describing depending on the context (eg : iphone, ipad or backberry, portrait or landscape view…).

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 12:44:30 +0000

Wayne, great point! You can lead a horse to water, but if they don’t know HOW to drink, what’s the point.

By: Wayne Eckerson

Wayne Eckerson — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 12:39:06 +0000

Great column. I wonder, though, if it’s fair to compare BI to the iPad. Although we can probably make reporting and dashboarding as easy as navigating the iPad — since those are more passive activities that can be interacted with (if designed properly) by clicking on graphics, analysis is more complex. Analysis, first of all, requires users to know what the data means and how to analyze information and then, they have to know how to filter, sort, calculate, visualize, publish, etc. The latter is fairly straightforward with good design, but the former is hard to encode in software!