Designing Effective Output CSCI 252 Ch 11 Designing Effective Output

Information Be able to define . . . Subset of data / query that answers the right question at the right time Subjective Short shelf life Understandable / comprehendible

Objectives: Serves a purpose (Output driven by user / organizational spec) Meaningful (if not understood . . .not info!) Quantity (see meaningful . . ) Distribution (see meaningful) Timeliness (see meaningful) Method (Printsee meaningful)

Relating Content to Method Print? Video? Email? Screen? How will data be used? Who’s looking at the data? What is the purpose?

Turnaround Document

Output Methods

Video, Audio, Animation Supplement static output Distance collaboration Show and tell SOP Archiving (posterity, accessibility)

Electronic Output RSS Feeds Push technology Pull technology

Consider: Audience (specific / general? Quantity? Timeliness? Frequency? Reliability? Compatibility? Security? Support (manufacture)

Costs Initial costs (hardware / software) Training? Learning curve Human environmental requirements Accessibility / security Noise /interference Temperature / environment Access points

Bias Sorting Limits Graphs Impact on end users

Printed Report Design Costs Standardization Functional attributes (heading / page numbers, grouping / sorting)

Printed Reports

Display Simplicity Consistency Facilitate movement among output Humane

Display

Display (drill down)

Graphical Output Consider Purpose Data type Audience Desired result

What’s being expressed?

Dashboards

Web Widgets and gadgets Study other websites Use professional tools (speed)

Blogs Audience? Purpose? Expectations?

Output Production and XML XML Data: Defined once, used in many places . . . XSLT (extensible style language transformations) CSS (cascading style sheets) AJAX (JavaScript and XML)