User Experience Principles for

Information SystemsBest Practices in Presenting Analytical Information

Data is everywhere.

People use information systems to understand data and solve problems.

(Or at least try to…)

There are 3 fundamental questions that must be answered by every information

system:

1.What is happening now?

2.If there are problems, why?

3.What do I do next?

What is happening now? = KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators)

What is a KPI?

• Timely

• Relevant

• Directly answers a primary business question

A KPI is a piece of information with the following attributes:

ExamplesKPI’s are usually in the form of

[some event or action] per [unit of time]

• New sales per day

• Phone minutes (used) per month

• Miles (travelled) per hour

If a metric doesn’t answer a primary business question,

it’s probably best utilized as context.

Context helps fill the gaps…

The 2 best ways to identify KPI’s

1.Interview your customers about which metrics matter most.

2.Take your best guess and let your users customize it!

If the KPI’s indicate a problem,the user will want to know why it’s happening.

Use Context to explain Why

• The most common UX paradigm for this is to use “drilldown” pages.

• These pages usually exist one level below the main page in the IA.

• These pages should provide enough details to adequately explain and define one of the main metrics, i.e. context.

Context is there to help fill in the gaps.

Edward Tufte describes context as“doing whatever it takes to explain a

concept”.

Here is Tufte’s classic example of context.

In essence, context is storytelling.

So here’s an example…

Someone sprinted for 19.19 seconds.

• Data is just an abstraction of real events.

An athlete sprinted 200m in 19.19 seconds.

• A single data point is always connected to a series of other data points.

Usain Bolt sprinted 200m in 19.19 seconds and set a new world record to become one

of the world’s greatest sprinters!

• Establishing effective context is about putting data points together to tell a more effective story.

When you’ve shown people what’s happening,

and you’ve told a great story about why,they want to know what to do next.

What do I do next? = Actionable Insight

A compelling story leads to actionable insight.

• What you do with KPI’s and context, may lead to insight without doing anything else.

• Otherwise, you will need to find ways to “spell it out”.

It’s about helping people“connect the dots”.

Sometimes, the story is complex.

Sometimes, it’s too simple.

In general, the human brain is

conditioned to look for patterns and

variations.

So an ideal information system should help the user quickly identify patterns and variations.

Someone sprinted for 19.19 seconds.

• If you were trying to be a better sprinter, what insights can you gain here?

Usain Bolt sprinted 200m in 19.19 seconds and set a new world record to become one

of the world’s greatest sprinters!

• How about now?

Study your customers’behaviors and tendencies.

• Align the product to what people do in real life by studying what your customers do and how they do it.

• Connect other related activities to drilldown screens where it makes sense, to make the system feel “intuitive”.

• A common thing people do is take data tables and graphs and put them into Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint decks.

In the end, the goal is to help people analyze things.

So make sure the story you tell is a

masterpiece!