Why Business Intelligence and Design Theory Must Merge

The term business intelligence was coined by IBM researcher Hans Peter Luhn early 40 years before the World Wide Web became a mainstream platform. Of course, it has evolved significantly over the past half century, largely due to advances in digital technology. Cloud computing and big data are also driving the future of business intelligence in unexpected ways.

While the technology behind business intelligence has evolved in unimaginable ways, many brands still haven’t updated their strategies accordingly. Andy Cotgreave, a consultant and contributor for Computer World, says one of their biggest mistakes is failing to seamlessly incorporate the right designs into their business intelligence models.

Most people believe that design and business intelligence as separate functions. Cotgreave states that business intelligence and design are closely intertwined, so brands need to use them together to create a competitive advantage.

There are several ways that providing a better design benefits your BI.

You can’t collect actionable data on your customers without getting them to interact with your platform. Your platform needs to be inviting and user-friendly.

“The second level of processing is behavioral,” Cotgreave writes. “When someone wishes to use an everyday thing, such as a door at an entrance to a building, they have an objective (enter the building). Using that object, can he or she successfully complete the task at hand? Are the things the object can do apparent and obvious? Don Norman shares many failures in the book, including examples of poorly designed doors where a lack of hinges and push/pull signs thoroughly confuse people.”

Improving your design improves both the amount and quality of your data in several ways:

The UX design plays a larger role than you may expect, so make sure it is properly executed.

Every online marketing and data research campaign requires a great design. However, a great design is equally important and more overlooked with many offline strategies, such as trade show marketing.