Information Quality

16InfoQ support with JMP

Ian Cox

JMP Division, SAS Institute, Cary, NC, USA

16.1 Introduction

JMP is a desktop product from SAS that is designed to allow researchers, engineers, and scientists to get the most value from data generated by measurements. Like all software, it is enabling in the sense that it has the potential to allow users to do things that would otherwise be difficult or impossible for them to do through another way. The InfoQ framework allows consideration and discussion of what “value” actually means in specific situations, a more rational appraisal of possible alternative approaches or, in the worst case, a clearer indication of the limitations of an approach demanded by practical considerations.

Clearly the skills, aptitudes, and knowledge of the user are a vital consideration in the design and development of software that aspires to enable, and, as with everything, there is variation in these three aspects. To tame this complexity, modern software development is usually couched in terms of a repertoire of use cases (Cockburn, 2001), often refined by an agile approach for delivery (Shore and Warden, 2007). Such use cases can generally be grouped into two types, which we will label as planned and unplanned. A planned use case is characterized by the fact that the pathway from data to information and action is known (or stipulated) in advance, whereas for an unplanned use case, this is not so. For a given application area, unplanned use cases tend to come ...