by Laurie Veska.
Given the high licensing costs for proprietary desktop Geographic Information System (GIS) software suitable for common geological tasks, and the inherent complexity of this type of product, time spent analysing your usage and requirements can pay good dividends.
The first thing is to look honestly and objectively at your potential and current GIS software users. It is normally possible to subdivide your users into four groups: power-users, standard-users , occasional or view-only users, and finally conscientious objectors or luddites – those that have no interest at all in this type of software.
It is no surprise that the power-user has the greatest demands and requirements from their GIS software. These users regularly perform detailed tasks including creation and import of spatial data, perform spatial analysis, coordinate system transforms and create complex plot-files for hard copy. They may even undertake small GIS programming tasks.
The next group is the standard user, into which most employees with a scientific background will fall. A distinguishing feature of this group is that members often find that periods of 3-6 months or more may go by between tasks where they use their GIS software. This means that a lot of the more complex tasks power-users perform regularly must be virtually re-learnt each time by the normal user, and it is often the power-users who end up tutoring them.
The third group includes personnel with little scientific background, and also senior management who just want to view summary spatial information, perhaps in a form that you often see printed in a prospectus, announcement or annual report. It is often the ‘standard’ users who find themselves regularly tutoring the view-only users.
What this all means is that if, for example, you have 10 employees with at least some interest in having GIS software on their machines, chances are only one or two of them actually require a fully-featured product. You may also find that the other six or seven employees will still want access to a full feature GIS, with all the bells and whistles even if it is unlikely that the full feature set will ever be utilised by them.
The typical scenario then, is that in a given organisation, the chosen GIS software is used 90% of the time for just viewing data or performing relatively simple operations.
What to do then if your organisation has a limited IT budget?
This is the subject of my next article where I will discuss some practical approaches and solutions to this question..
To find out more or to contact Laurie at www.lveska.com (or click here)