Regarding ease-of-use, it’s often struck me when reviewing data systems papers that the evaluation sections are full of performance and correctness criteria, but only rarely is there any discussion of how well a system helps its target users achieve their goals: how easy is it to build, maintain, and debug applications?; how easy is it to operate and troubleshoot? Yet in an industry setting, systems that focus on ease of use (even at the expense of some of the other criteria) have tended to do very well. What would happen if a research program put ease of use (how easy is it to achieve the outcome the user desires) as its top evaluation criteria? Adrian Colyer
Data base design criteria: ease of use