Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
suited as compared to a snapshot report. To summarize, the focus should
be on movement of information from a screen to the user, rather than on
moving data from a database to a screen.
Why a Printout Is Still Preferred to Seeing Data on Screen
It is a well-recognized fact that there is a vast difference between the way
people read screen (softcopy) text and printed (hardcopy) material. The
difference between the two media arises due to human biology (human
eyes react better in passive light reflected off paper than in light emitted
from a computer monitor), and also due to the relative degrees of freedom
between the two. Screens can display only a small percentage of the
content, usually as much as a single printed page can carry. Users tend
to be a little impatient with screens (computer applications) — the
dynamism of the medium allowing them to scan for “more” information
than is immediately available (hyperlinks). In contrast, hardcopies, by their
restrictive nature, help focus on the subject at hand. Further, printouts of
reports are preferred so that the reader can carry it around, fold or lay
individual pages over each other for more clarity, annotate them, and,
habitually for some, disfigure them.
It is important to take the above factors into consideration while
designing reports. On-screen reports should have a Web-acceptable font,
pleasing colors, navigational tools to traverse through a report, and pos-
sibly well-defined headers and footers on each page to give a sense of
independence. On the other hand, when the same report is printed, the
report tool should automatically readjust the margins, headers, color
(preferably grayscale), and fonts. For example, dark backgrounds, which
look good on slides, rarely print well.
Off-the-Shelf (OTS) Reports
Many of the reports that managers see today are not built from scratch
but come from OTS products or customized versions of OTS products
implemented within the organization. OTS reports can sometimes present
their own set of issues.
Most OTS products have a suite of built-in reports that are available
to end users. These out-of-the-box reports are usually generic and come
with a set of predefined “filters” through which users can narrow down
the information presented to them. These are analogous to the concept
of parameterized queries in databases and, as a concept, probably origi-
nated from there.
