Usability, Databases, and HCI.
Fei Li, H. V. Jagadish · 2012
As usability is becoming recognized as a crucial feature for databases, there is growing reason for us to pay attention to the principles of Human Computer Interaction (HCI). This article explores the interaction of HCI with databases. We can learn from specific HCI areas, such as information visualization, from general HCI principles, such as direct manipulation, and from HCI methodology, such as running good user studies. However, there is much required for database usability that goes beyond HCI. 1 Usability in Databases Computer professionals have long recognized the importance of organizing data. The core principles of database technology were established early in the history of modern computing. Today, databases are widely used in a broad range of organizations, and are the basis for a vibrant commercial sector. In spite of these successes, there has been a longstanding question asked by many about why so much data is not in databases. In comparison, consider compilers, another computing technology whose core principles were developed early. There do remain today a few specialized situations in which people choose to write assembler directly and forgo the benefits of compiling a high level language, but these situations are rare. Why do so many choose so frequently to give up the many wonderful benefits provided by databases?