Blog: William McKnight: It's (still) about ease-of-use

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It's (still) about ease-of-use

A recent study by InformationWeek confirms that ease-of-use is still most important when purchasing BI software or selecting a vendor. This is well worth repeating since I still see many BI professionals, myself included at times, that get lulled into believing that modern data access tools are indeed "user friendly" to actual users.

Accoutrements to the development of the end user interface include training, metadata and data stewardship as well as effective usage design.

One company that brings us a new paradigm in data access for applications with a visual orientation is Tableau Software.

Tableau Software displays query results visually and graphically as opposed to displaying the actual results. This helps a user skip the step in his or her head that translate those numbers and text into something meaningful. It's a step where thoughts don't often complete and thought processes are abandoned. It could be useful for certain situations. You can take a product tour at their site.

Keep an eye on the real ease of use of your BI interface. The ones who make the final determination will be the users.

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