Most of us have experienced warehouse shopping, which can be time-consuming, frustrating, and sometimes rewarding. Using this analogy, this article provides some guidelines for creating a reporting portal's UI, providing a no-pain, all-gain "customer" experience.

Know Your Customer
In the realm of Web applications, it's important to distinguish between the needs of users accessing reporting sites versus those accessing online data-entry applications. While expectations for security and performance will be similar, the end-user experience will differ. In a data-entry application, the user comes in with a specific goal of inputting data into the system. Job functions may dictate the use of certain forms neatly bundled into a predictable role-based workflow.

Users entering a reporting portal bring a unique and broader perspective. Similar to the warehouse shopper who buys in bulk, they may want to digest a large number of records for data manipulation purposes. Occasionally, the warehouse shopper may need a particular item, compared to a reporting user looking for a key record buried in thousands. With this profile in mind, the tips outlined below offer guidelines for keeping the user experience more rewarding than frustrating.

Greet Them at the Door
Good warehouse stores have an eye-catching welcome display and message at the front door, perhaps with one or two greeters on standby. Great warehouse stores have energetic and informative greeters who will gladly answer and direct customers. Good reporting portals have clear menus easily accessible to users. Great ones go beyond clear navigation and display a landing page with useful information. Suppose the portal contains reports from various categories or business entities: each could contain their own interactive search panel; each panel could have search fields containing static lists of categorical information. The landing page should be a place to specify preferences for site access, customize static data lists, or set other useful session settings.

Keep Your Store Directory Visible
Having been greeted at the door and landing on a superb preferences page sets the user up for a tailored experience. As in other kinds of sites, navigational elements have to stay prominent. Indicators should be visible, page titles properly displayed, cookie crumbs appropriately provided, and users given a way back to previously performed activities.

Advertise the Specials
Most retail giants wouldn't be in business if they couldn't draw customers in with their advertising. Since there's something to sell in the reporting portal, this advertising can easily be done on the landing page or other prominent area in the portal. Examples are suggestions of most useful or popular reports, role-based links for accessing reports, enhancements or updated features, and newly published reports to the portal.

Keep the Aisles Clear
Overflowing carts and boxes blocking the aisle are enough to make shoppers take a sharp detour. Keep it simple, eye-catching, and uncluttered. No matter what the color scheme or theme, the design shouldn't distract the user from getting to and focusing on the data. For example, in navigating to a search panel, users should be aware of all the criteria and options available to them. Related fields should be put together so users can create more specific searches. Consistency in both design and workflow throughout the entire portal will lead to users efficiently accessing the data needed with confidence and certainty.

Keep the Shelves Stocked
Shoppers expect to find shelves fully stocked with advertised and popular items. Much the same way, users running a particular report look for smart searches. Available criteria contained in search panels should be intuitive. Auto-lookup features, embedded date controls, and filtered lists help users refine their search to receive a more customized result set. Within results, options on the data itself should help refine the search if necessary: filters on column data, sorting, grouping, and drilldown reports are examples of further refinement on an already executed search.

Let the Product Speak for Itself
As important as it is to have clear indications for navigation, the presentation of the data must be designed. Alternating colors on rows and distinctive styles applied to key data cells all help the reader digest the data being returned. Wherever possible, the portal should present data in a variety of formats, from tabular representations to charts and graphs.

Have an Associate on Every Aisle
Successful store giants staff the sales floor with proficient and knowledgeable employees, which can make a difference in retaining shoppers. This concept applies to any site or reporting portal and is often overlooked and underestimated. Be sure to provide users with an on-demand help system capable of clarifying a field definition with context-sensitive help, or provide detailed how-to procedures on running complex reports.

Provide Many Checkout Options
Cash-only checkout wouldn't go down well in today's shopping, and neither does one presentation for reporting data. Result sets should be available for packaging in a variety of formats. For users who want to import their reporting data into other applications, it might be useful to provide results in CSV or Excel. For users who want to share results via e-mail or print, a PDF copy would be useful.

Similar to the retail giant who draws in thousands of shoppers on a busy weekend morning, a Web reporting portal can attract hundreds to thousands of users depending on the nature of its reports, purpose, and intended audience. While design and user experience may be initially sacrificed due to lack of resources, any successful retail marketer would agree that understanding customer needs and designing an experience tailored to those needs leads to increased product sucess. Whether the portal is private, such as an intranet-based reporting tool, or public, such as an enterprise application delivering time-sensitive data over the Web, user experience needs are similar. Recognizing these needs and incorporating them into the portal design will give users reason to "shop" with confidence.

Tips for Your Cart

• Know your customer.
• Greet them at the door.
• Keep your store directory visible.
• Advertise the specials.
• Keep the aisles clear.
• Keep the shelves stocked.
• Let the product speak for itself.
• Have an associate on every aisle.
• Provide many checkout options.