1. Mar 27, 2008 Christiano Santiago1 Making Database Systems Usable University of Michigan H.V. Jagadish, Adriane Chapman, Aaron Elkiss, Magesh Jayapandian, Yunyao Li, Arnab Nandi, Cong Yu

2. Mar 27, 2008 Christiano Santiago2 Agenda Users Expectations The Persistence of Pain The Painless Future Conclusion Q&A

3. Mar 27, 2008 Christiano Santiago3 Users Expectations Database interactions Ability to query in a more sophisticated way, using complex query semantics More precise and complete answers Expectation of structure in the result set Create and update databases

4. Mar 27, 2008 Christiano Santiago4 The Persistence Of Pain

5. Mar 27, 2008 Christiano Santiago5 Higher Level Presentation Data Model Painful Relations

6. Mar 27, 2008 Christiano Santiago6 Higher Level Presentation Data Model Painful Relations Simple concept versus Implementation Flight info X

7. Mar 27, 2008 Christiano Santiago7 Higher Level Presentation Data Model Painful Relations SELECT s.departure_time FROM schedule AS s, flight_info AS f, airports AS d, airports AS a WHERE s.id = f.schedule_id AND f.fid = d.id AND d.city_name = “Beijing” AND f.tid = a.id AND a.city_name = “Detroit” What are the fligth departure times from Detroit to Beijing?

8. Mar 27, 2008 Christiano Santiago8 Higher Level Presentation Data Model Painful Relations Problems Large number of table Poorly named entities Poorly named fields Joins are not intuitive Recursive self-joins SQL is too onerous Dependency on DBA (please don’t leave!)

9. Mar 27, 2008 Christiano Santiago9 Multiple Ways to Access Data Painful Options

10. Mar 27, 2008 Christiano Santiago10 Multiple Ways to Access Data Painful Options Too much functionality and too many options X

11. Mar 27, 2008 Christiano Santiago11 Multiple Ways to Access Data Painful Options Barry Schwartz, The tyranny of choice. Scientific American, April 2004, pp. 71-75

12. Mar 27, 2008 Christiano Santiago12 Multiple Ways to Access Data Painful Options Perspectives Design systems for customized value Care about how well uses can get their job done Forms-based interfaces have been the primary means to interact with databases Provide simple querying tools for novice users and powerful tools for experts (customization)

13. Mar 27, 2008 Christiano Santiago13 Precision and Recall Unexpected Pain

14. Mar 27, 2008 Christiano Santiago14 Precision and Recall Unexpected Pain X

15. Mar 27, 2008 Christiano Santiago15 Search engines error acceptance Expectations are set correctly Usually top few results do contain something relevant If no relevant results were found, search it again The web is so huge that no one knows exactly what is out there Precision and Recall Unexpected Pain

16. Mar 27, 2008 Christiano Santiago16

17. Mar 27, 2008 Christiano Santiago17 Unable to query Systems may impede users from querying the way they want Scenario: world traveler with infinite flexibility and many destinations to visit Precision and Recall Unexpected Pain X

18. Mar 27, 2008 Christiano Santiago18 Precision and Recall Unexpected Pain Unable to query User’s versus form designer’s mental model of the data. Users should be worried about how. They just need the what. Challenge #1: it’s not easy to provide a straightforward and comprehensive way of specifying what a user wants when a query requires aggregation or multiple complex joins. Challenge #2: performance, security access level, data or program errors may prevent users from running a query.

19. Mar 27, 2008 Christiano Santiago19 Unexpected results (Unexpected results) + (no explanation) = frustration Precision and Recall Unexpected Pain Example 1 The client record shows he has 2 cars but There is only 1 car related to this client in the database. # of cars was a field in the Client table, with no referential Integrity with CarOwner table

20. Mar 27, 2008 Christiano Santiago20 Unexpected results (Unexpected results) + (no explanation) = frustration Precision and Recall Unexpected Pain Example 2 User is looking for cheap flights provided by her favorite airline: Los Angeles for $75 Boston for $100 San Francisco for $400 (?) $400 was less than half the average price for a ticket to San Francisco

21. Mar 27, 2008 Christiano Santiago21 Precision and Recall Unexpected Pain Unexpected results Empty & non-empty results Users may need to know where a result comes from Users may need to know why a result is returned System’s usability can be significantly affected when no explanation can be given

22. Mar 27, 2008 Christiano Santiago22 Errors In Query Construction Unseen Pain

23. Mar 27, 2008 Christiano Santiago23 Errors In Query Construction Unseen Pain Database Users versus Computer Scientists X

24. Mar 27, 2008 Christiano Santiago24 Errors In Query Construction Unseen Pain

25. Mar 27, 2008 Christiano Santiago25 Errors In Query Construction Unseen Pain Perspectives Query purpose: provide information that the user doesn’t have How do I provide a clear and precise “from” and “where” clause, if I don’t know the possibilities? WYSIWYG

26. Mar 27, 2008 Christiano Santiago26 Errors In Query Construction Unseen Pain WYISWYG Assisted Querying using Instant-Response Interfaces Arnab Nandi & H. V. Jagadish - University of Michigan

27. Mar 27, 2008 Christiano Santiago27 Errors In Query Construction Unseen Pain WYISWYG Google Earth approach Can you image finding a location in a map using coordinates instead of zoom and rotation?

28. Mar 27, 2008 Christiano Santiago28 Database Creation Birthing pain

29. Mar 27, 2008 Christiano Santiago29 Database Creation Birthing pain Corporate Market versus Average User X

30. Mar 27, 2008 Christiano Santiago30 Database Creation Birthing pain Perspectives Users want to store their data into databases but this is not an easy task Database schema Table structure Normalization Relationships Constraints

31. Mar 27, 2008 Christiano Santiago31 Database Creation Birthing pain Perspectives An everyday database No clear view of required database structure No comprehensive design at starting point Structure grows as time passes Structure grows incrementally Need to support both structured and unstructured information

32. Mar 27, 2008 Christiano Santiago32 The Painless Future

33. Mar 27, 2008 Christiano Santiago33 The Painless Future Geographic Model Joins between data sets using geographic or spatial location as the basis

34. Mar 27, 2008 Christiano Santiago34 The Painless Future Network Model Graph or network representation of data.

35. Mar 27, 2008 Christiano Santiago35 The Painless Future Multidimensional Model Data as points in multi-dimensional space

36. Mar 27, 2008 Christiano Santiago36 The Painless Future Tabular Model People is used to seeing data represented in simple two-dimensional tables

37. Mar 27, 2008 Christiano Santiago37 The Painless Future Presentation Data Models Perspectives Data manipulation through presentation data model versus view updates Consistency among view options: geographic and textual views in synchrony Data provenance: “why” and “where” related to result sets Direct data manipulation Point-and-click, drag-and-drop, etc. New few number of algebra operators to support it Schema-later (unstructured) and heterogeneous database design

38. Mar 27, 2008 Christiano Santiago38 Conclusion Databases are extremely difficult for most people to interact with. We must rethink the architecture of the database systems as a whole. Presentation model as a distinct layer above usual logical data model.

39. Mar 27, 2008 Christiano Santiago39 Questions & Answers