Understanding Business Intelligence Users

On personas and diverging skill sets that lead to poor UX over time

Personas, personas, personas. Unlike consumer software, Enterprise Applications target users with diverging skill sets. The same app could be used by expert developers and non-technical business users. These applications are not always like Google Sheets where everyone is using the same functionality. Instead, they often have features that can only be used by experts. This is especially true when it comes to Business Intelligence (BI) tools.

The simplest BI tool may involve the following set of users:

1. Administrator [Moderate Technical]

   1. More technical than an excel ninja but not necessarily a developer/programmer

   2. Responsible for set up, maintenance, and user management

2. Data Engineer/BI Engineer/Analytics Engineer [Technical]

   1. Highly technical user responsible for configuring data artifacts

      1. Connections

      2. Semantic models (if applicable)

      3. In memory data caches and related pipelines

   2. Develops key dashboards and reports

3. Business User [Non-Technical]

   1. In many cases these users passively consume dashboards created by other personas

   2. Some subset of these users will try to self serve basic dashboards and reports

Take a close look at (1) and (2) above and compare that with (3)’s you know. The skills set gap is continental. Now imagine building a tool while trying to optimize for all three personas. Then imagine adding data scientists and other personas as vendors seek to increase market share. Many spinning plates stacked precariously on a single tool.

This is why your company has 10 BI tools and you hate them all.