Making Data Available Online and on the Screen

Often you have two views of your data: what you see on the screen and what you see in the reports. For example, a checkbook program might have a transaction view of the data where you can enter your transactions. Then it might have a reports view where you can see, for example, all your transactions organized by category.

This report view might be available both as a printout and on the screen. But if you make it available on the screen, don’t confuse it with Print Preview. Print Preview refers to drawing on the screen exactly what the user will see when printing the document. Showing the report on the screen, on the other hand, should be more powerful than a simple Print Preview, since the users have, after all, a computer at their disposal that can let them customize the view.

For example, the checkbook program might allow the user to customize the report by choosing which categories appear in the report. However, that’s still not taking the online report to its full potential, since after the customization, the user might be presented with a static report.

Therefore, think in terms of dynamic versus static: A printout (and Print Preview) is a static report. On the screen, however, you can make your reports dynamic. Here are some possibilities:

• If the report has text, the user might be able to highlight certain parts of it, copy it, and then paste it into another program.

• The user might be able to sort the report based on different columns by clicking on a column header.

• The user might be able to collapse certain parts of the report, showing no detail for the collapsed section, only, for example, a total amount.

• You could include a filter so the user can see only specific data. For example, in an e-mail program, the user might want to set up a filter so she could see only messages from a particular user. An accounting program might allow the user to show only expenses within a particular dollar range, for example.

• For the advanced users, you might include a 3D chart. Such a chart might include controls the user can manipulate to rotate the chart and view it in different ways. You would want to put this in an advanced features area of your product, however, since studies have shown that people not skilled in math have a difficult time with 3D information.

You can see where I’m going here: I’m taking the concept of the report and making it dynamic and interactive, using electronic capabilities that aren’t available in a printed report.

RULE

If you make your reports available on the screen, make them dynamic so that the users can get the most out of the information. Don’t create just a poor excuse for a Print Preview.

Putting Your Data on the Web

If you want your data to be available on the Web, remember that people surfing the Web expect data to be slightly different than in a regular program. For example, if you’re writing banking software and want to allow people to access their accounts online, instead of just printing the equivalent of a bank statement on the screen, think in terms of links.

First, you might have a page that lists the different accounts the customer owns, such as a checking account and a savings account, like so:

Account	Balance
Checking	5.37
Savings	2.52

Each of these accounts would be clickable. When you click on an account, a new page comes down showing the transactions for the account. But this list might be simple, including, for example, the date of the transaction, the amount, and a description, like so:

Date	Description	Amount	Balance
1/1/04	Safeway	$25.35	$100.25
1/2/04	Exxon	$72.42	$27.83
1/3/04	7-Eleven	$22.46	$5.37

(Yes, gas was expensive that week.) At the top of each column in the list might be a link (for example, the word Date might be clickable) that lets the user relist the data sorted by that column, either ascending or descending. And each transaction might also be clickable, which might, for example, open a new window showing more detail about the transaction, if such information is available.

Backwards Odometers and Mile Markers

I do a lot of traveling, and I enjoy going on long drives across multiple states. In the United States, most of the highways have mile markers on them. These come in handy when the exits are numbered similarly. (Georgia and Florida used to not have exit numbers that coincided with the mile markers, but they recently changed that. California still doesn’t even have any exit numbers on most of its highways, which makes trip planning that much more difficult.)

While the mile markers let me know how far I am from an exit, they also serve the wonderful purpose of knowing how far I have to go until the next state. (No, I’m not running from anything and need to get out of state; I just like to drive places!) If I’m heading west on Interstate 40, and I see the mile marker 140, I know I’m 140 miles from the next state. At 70 miles per hour, that’s two hours of driving.

That works out well, as long as I’m going in the right direction. If I’m going the opposite direction, I’m at a loss. Unless I know what the maximum mile marker number is, I can’t know how many miles I have left. And even if I do know, for example, that the maximum number is 432, I still have to do a subtraction in my mind every time I want to know how far I am from the state line.

Maybe I’m abusing the mile marker system and “they” never meant for me to use it to figure out how far away the state line is. But I do use it for that purpose. And a simple solution would be to have a small number at the bottom of the mile marker with the opposite mile marker, showing how far away the other state line is. This number could be smaller and at the bottom, so there’s no mistaking the actual mile marker in case somebody has to call 911 to report an accident.

But in addition to the mile markers, I make heavy use of my odometer. My Honda has three odometers: one that tells me the mileage on the car and two trip odometers that I can reset to zero. But these odometers suffer the same problem as the mile markers: They go only one way.

Now an odometer that counts backwards still wouldn’t be much help. If I know I have 50 miles to go and I reset the odometer to 0, counting next to 999999 then down to 999950 would cause some mental anguish in figuring out how far I have to go. (Although I could just ignore the 9999, but that’s annoying.) Better would be if I could somehow type in five-zero (like on the timer on a microwave) and then watch the odometer count backwards, telling me how many miles I have to go! I would love that!

Now having spent a lot of time behind the steering wheel, I’ve given a good bit of thought to how you would type in five-zero without swerving off the road into a giant oak. A keypad would be impractical near the odometer and other gauges, and that would be hard to type on, since the steering wheel is in the way. Instead, right on the steering wheel could be 10 little buttons where I could type in the desired number. But a keypad arrangement (or a phone arrangement, which is upside down) wouldn’t be practical, since typing while driving isn’t a good idea. Instead, the steering wheel could have 10 buttons arranged across the front of the wheel from left to right, with 0 on the leftmost, and 9 on the rightmost, and I could press the buttons with my thumbs.

That would be ideal! And it’s not like I’m typing a 450-page book while driving down the road. (Don’t give me any bad ideas, now!) I’d prefer to let my car move straight ahead, following the lines on the road…while the car easily tells me how much farther I have to go. (Of course, someday all cars will have GPS systems with such information, but that’s a separate usage issue altogether!)

However, don’t go overboard with the clicking! Just as you don’t want to make the user jump through hoops in your software to get to where they want to be, you don’t want to bog them down as they try to get to the information on your site. If you have further data for each transaction, you can easily use a smaller font and list the details below the transaction, for example.

Accessing Up-To-Date Information Online

The company carrying my cell phone lets me access the current bill online. That’s a good thing; I can pay it online and see the current bill. Unfortunately, the information gets posted on the Web at the time the bill is printed, and I can’t see any phone call data until the next bill posts. The website, then, is serving as nothing more than an online version of the phone bill.

Come on, folks, the information is there in the database. Why can’t I see the calls I made yesterday on the website? Why do I have to wait three weeks until the next bill posts? Probably because of some computer limitation.

Nonsense. The data is there on the computer; let me look at it! But if you’re concerned about the website hitting the database, then mirror the database, make the mirror available to web users, and, if necessary, update the mirror only once every 24 hours. That’s good enough. And then I can look online and see all the calls I’ve made since the previous bill, and I’ll have an idea of how far I am into my allowed minutes. And I can go through and see what day I called my editor, and I can find out what day my sister called me with a great book idea. The information is there, and the company has no reason not to put it online. (Don’t tell me it’s not possible, and don’t make up technical excuses why it’s too complex. I’m paying you a lot of money every month.)