Orion – A Visual Approach to Business Analytics
By Ben Tomsky, Peter Ebert, SAP Labs, User Experience Group, Palo Alto, USA – 12/22/2000
Disclaimer: Please note that this edition was written in 2000. Therefore, statements in the articles, particularly those regarding SAP's products, product strategy, branding strategy, and organizational structure, may no longer be valid.
Abstract
The authors present the Orion system, a web-based business analytics prototype, which allows for the visualization and examination of multi-dimensional business data. From the scale of the immense to the minuscule, Orion exposes business data and relationships within the data that have, to date, remained unseen. Its emphasis on an easily accessible interface and natural-language querying produce a highly usable experience, where a tremendous quantity of data may be accessed intuitively and expeditiously.
The Challenge
A fundamental challenge exists in the practice of business analytics: while humans are inherently visual creatures, the information that must be processed rarely appeals to our sense of vision. More often than not, business analytics consists of the examination of text and numbers, which limits the potential results of the analytical process.
The Solution
Orion is a web-based business analytics prototype, which allows for the visualization and examination of multi-dimensional business data.
By combining figures from Dun & Bradstreet, the world's leading provider of business information, with internal company data, Orion possesses the backbone of a powerful analytic tool. This otherwise static data comes to life with technology provided by Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI), a company specializing in Geographical Information Systems (GIS). Software produced by ESRI allows data with a geographic component to be transposed onto dynamic, interactive maps.
Data Integration, Aesthetic Presentation
With this software as a foundation, Orion draws from the database containing Dun & Bradstreet and internal company data to produce such maps. The resultant maps exhibit incredible data density, yet maintain a high level of transparency. As an example:
Figure 1: Strategic market overview
In both the table above the map, and within the map itself by the size and shape representing a location, this display simultaneously conveys the following:
- the location and size in square footage of the 20 SAP offices within the US
- the following information about SAP's total target market for ultimate companies (i.e., mother companies) out of the primary metal and steel industry, within the US: the location, number, and revenue class of the 89 prospects, 1 pipeline, and 2 customers (all data scrambled in this example)
Holistic Relationships Revealed
While conventional analytical techniques often mask holistic-level relationships between data, these potentially significant relationships are immediately perceptible with Orion. A user may simultaneously consider an unprecedented quantity of geographically oriented business data, which defines an environment that facilitates the comprehension of relations.
The following screenshot displays an organization's Dun & Bradstreet Family Tree:
Figure 2: Dun & Bradstreet Family Tree
Here, Orion reveals the relationships between the mother company, all subsidiaries, and all branches within the organization. Below the map a list reiterates the information contained within the map, while adding the details of each company's location, revenue, industry, and distance to its mother company.
Available Details
In addition to allowing a holistic overview, Orion facilitates examination in far greater detail. Maps may be manipulated by panning and zooming, with zooming capabilities down to the level of individual streets, throughout the US.
Upon clicking on any of the figures in the table above a map (see fig. 1) specifics on each company within the revenue range are displayed. These include: the companies' names; revenues; Standard Industry Classification (SIC) codes; and the city, state, and zip code in which the company is located. Further, within this display, a user has the option to view the Dun & Bradstreet Family Tree or Dun & Bradstreet Business Indicator Ratios.
Dun & Bradstreet Business Indicator Ratios are a set of 14 generic ratios that indicate the performance of a company relative to its industry peers. Orion graphically displays these ratios in an easy-to-grasp way, with red indicators representing the most severe 'business pain areas' and green ones the strengths:
Figure 3: Dun & Bradstreet Business Indicator Ratios
A Natural-language Interface
At its core, Orion is designed as an intuitive, immediately accessible tool. While the discussion and screenshots presented heretofore evidence this, a significant element of the system's usability has not yet been considered. The following excerpt has been taken from figure 1:
Figure 4: Natural-language interface
Here, we see how a user interacts with the mapping system. Instead of a conventional interface relying on a technical database-query syntax, Orion accepts natural-language commands. A user forms a sentence by simply selecting a phrase from each of these drop-down menus above the map. Since only supported sentences can be constructed, a user cannot form an invalid query. In addition, the completed sentence functions as the title of Orion's response, providing a consistent context for the presented data.
Conclusion
From the scale of the immense to the minuscule, Orion exposes business data and relationships within the data that have, to date, remained unseen. Its emphasis on an easily accessible interface and natural-language querying produce a highly usable experience, where a tremendous quantity of data may be accessed intuitively and expeditiously.
Currently, Orion is considered a proof-of-concept prototype, with installations within SAP America, Inc. It has been designed in the User Experience Group at SAP Labs, Palo Alto, California and is US patent pending.
For further information on Orion and a fully interactive demonstration, please visit www.saplabs.com/orionInfo/incoming.asp?source=DesignGuild.
