iBusiness Intelligence – Business Intelligence 2.0 with an i for Design

By Rob Paller, Consultant

Ten years ago Apple decided to change the way the world interacts with technology with the help of the innocuous little i. It started with the iMac and iBook. Not satisfied with the ripple those products created outside their loyal fan base they decided to make waves and introduced the iPod three years later. They revolutionized the cell phone industry with the release of the iPhone roughly 1.5 years ago. 

The success of the of the iPhone can be attributed to its well thought user interface, multi-touch input and tight controls placed on the developers creating applications for the iPhone.  Mint is an online personal finance and budget planning service with over 600,000 users. Not only do they boast a safe and secure online environment they provide excellent data visualization and analysis tools to their users at no cost.

Ever since Apple opened the doors on its App Store, Mint users have been clamoring for an iPhone application that gave them access to their financial and budget planning updated automatically at their fingertips, literally.

Mint recently released their iPhone app and after reviewing the application I asked myself why can’t Business Intelligence be this simple? Countless hours are spent identifying the right KPIs, capturing the metadata, and mastering the master data. When it comes to the working on the presentation, the data is jazzed up the wrong way and the intelligence is lost in 3D charts, gauges, and poor color palettes. Instead more time needs to be invested in helping the users of the data make intelligent decisions. It is about removing barriers and making the data accessible so you are able to get people to use, understand, and profit from it

Mint accomplishes this by giving users a simple yet intuitive interface. At the highest level you have the ability to see your cash balance, budget, cash on hand, expenses and more combined with a simple progress bar to provide a visual hint. The ability to drill deeper is hinted to you with a simple ‘>’ placed on the right side of the screen. With a simple tap of their finger you are able to drill down into your list of accounts and then into the transactions underneath a given account. The simplicity of the iPhone UI dictates that it must be this way. So does Business Intelligence 2.0.