Making Database Systems Easier to Use

In this talk, I will examine why database systems today are so difficult to

use and identify a set of five pain points. I will describe the work we have

been doing in my research group on database usability, and propose a research

agenda to address these pain points.

The central issue is one of understanding where structure in the data is

crucial, where it is unnecessary, and how to map between database structures

and user mental models.