SPSS Web Report

the problem

Making Results Available to a Wider Audience

One constant problem for analysts and statisticians is publishing their results to a wider audience. Most of the consumers of the information do not have licenses to the SPSS and do not necessarily want to download a viewer or install a copy.

the Process

Capitalize on Technology Available from Partners

As SPSS we were always looking for ways to create better ways for our users to distribute their results. The idea for this project took shape after I helped the Cognos team with user testing for "Active Reports."

• Tech Review
  • Active Reports are reports that can be generated from Cognos
  • They both a report (the data is static and embedded in the report) and a dashboard (the experience is interactive, including drill down and filtering)
  • They are viewable on most common web browsers
  • There is a Cognos App for Android and IPad for viewing published Active Reports
  • Active reports must be authored using tools within Cognos
• Discovery
  • I was part of a team of designers who validated the requirements for Active Reports by Cognos
  • Discussion with SPSS users proved that there was a need and desire for easier means to export from SPSS
  • Many customers had noth SPSS and Cognos, and many users used both depending on their tasks. Having a shared experience from both was heavily desired.

the product

One Button Export to a Web Format

Taking advantage of the existing technology created by Cognos, we moved to create our own version of Active Reports.

• SPSS Active Reports are 100% compatible with the Cognos Active Reports
• No special authoring was required, the format and interactivity would be inherited from the output in the Output window
  • A simple "Save as" action was the gesture to create the Active Report
• The design of the Active Report mimicked the experience to the SPSS Output window
  • Sidebar navigation
  • Object layout
  • Color schemes
  • Interactive filtering, slicing, and pivoting
• The design was responsive to desktop, tablets, and phones.
• We offered several skins for different look and feel selectable at creation time. The examples below used IBM standard colors and iconography available at that time.