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There are certain Business Intelligence (BI) vendors which make software that allow complete freedom to layout and design dashboards to whatever specifications, layout, theme and look-and-feel you want. There are others who have a set standard on how to lay them out, with some degree of flexibility on controlling the look-and-feel. Others would rather you adhere to their pre-defined layout standards so that you don’t get away from what matters: the data analysis.

I’ve worked with a few BI tools now and one of the most frustrating things, in my opinion, about having too much freedom is that it bogs down the true nature of what we, as developers, try to deliver. If there’s a specific layout template that has been designed, it SHOULD make it easier, right? In theory yes, in practice, you still have all those reports, elements, widgets and components that make up a dashboard to place within the template. As an individual that craves instant gratification, it is enormously frustrating to have it delayed, delayed and delayed yet again because things don’t “look right” when they’re put together.

Why can’t we develop BI tools that have customizable themes (a la WordPress blog themes, for example) that allows web developers the freedom to have customized stylesheets, sections that can be programmed in a way that works for the business within the context of their internal/external web application environments and allow the BI developers to be just that, BI developers instead of Web developers. To be honest, BI developers really stink at being Web developers (most of them anyway).

Think about it this way: Does Microsoft Excel give you the freedom and flexibility to layout their spreadsheet, toolbars, look-and-feel and placement of menu items? Sure, to a certain degree. But it all still looks like Excel at the end of the day, instantly recognizable and still eminently usable. I see BI applications as no different than Enterprise applications like Excel. If you want to incorporate components of your BI development into an intranet or portals, leverage the Web Services components that should come standard with all applications these days. Leave the web page design jobs to the User Interface junkies who’ve studied web design & usability (a la Jakob Nielson or Steve Krug).

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