User interfaces (UIs) can be expensive and often create dependencies on IT departments and their delivery timelines. To mitigate this, we propose several solutions, organized by their speed of implementation.
Citizen Developers already have access to numerous tools for data visualization and processing, provided by IT. Before developing new interfaces, it’s crucial to assess whether existing solutions can meet current needs.
Excel : The Pioneer of Visualization Tools
The first and most widespread of these tools is Excel, with its filtering, presentation features, chart generation capabilities, and numerous pre-designed templates. Historically, Citizen Devs master Excel perfectly. In practice, they will connect directly with the spreadsheet to the self-service data platform.
Note: The use of VBA and advanced macros should be limited for reasons of technological standardization and data sharing.
Excel should be seen as a lightweight client.
Business Intelligence Tools
Many organizations provide training on BI tools such as Tableau, Power BI, and Qlik Sense. Citizen Developers should be empowered to independently create, customize, and share their data visualizations, utilizing the self-service data platform as a primary resource.
Citizen Devs should be as independent as possible, building, customizing, and sharing their data visualizations. As with Excel, they will extensively utilize the self-service data platform for sourcing.
An important evolution to note: Traditionally, these tools are often seen as connected to analytical data, refreshed daily.
However, we must change this perception. These front-ends can now connect to operational data, with refresh rates of minutes or even seconds.
Integrated Development Environment (IDE)
For Citizen Devs, these development tools also serve as immediately available front-ends. The console, text editors (Notepad++, UltraEdit), development IDEs (VSCode, PyCharm, etc.), SQL querying tools (DataGrip, DBeaver), and Postman. Each of these data-presenting tools allows for exporting or enhancing data.
Low code UI / RAD
Behind the UI question lies a more subtle one: Should Citizen Devs be allowed to create applications?
We say yes.
Can these applications be shared?
Yes, among Citizen Devs or purely business users; however, sharing with clients requires IT oversight. Non-functional considerations (security, resilience, performance, support) are blind spots for Citizen Devs. For the same reasons, this constraint extends to applications that become critical or vital.
Many criteria must be considered when selecting a low-code tool. In an Ultimate Citizen Dev approach, simplicity, alignment with existing expertise, AI assistance, integration, and training potential are key.
A often overlooked but crucial criterion is data availability, ideally within the self-service data platform. Citizen Devs should not create new data silos.
Practically, many ecosystems support low-code development. In 2024, the most prominent are Microsoft Power Platform, Mendix, and OutSystems..
Software as a Service (SaaS)
SaaS is slower compared to the previous solutions but remains faster than custom development requested from IT.
However, caution is needed:
Software offering a competitive advantage for an industry is not found in SaaS and should be built by IT.
The “New SaaS” button is sometimes too easily accessible to business users, leading to extraordinary disorder.
Perhaps most critically, there’s the risk of vendor lock-in, where, upon license renewal, new contracts impose significant price increases.
What to Remember About SaaS in a Citizen Dev Context?
First, from a self-improvement perspective, the company, with IT’s support, should foster Citizen Developers’ curiosity about SaaS products and establish a shared governance framework.
Most importantly, purchased products must be open, providing APIs, buses, and especially datasets to integrate them into the centralized dataset platform.
IT Software (I Know What You Did Last Summer)
It is impossible for us not to talk about software developed by IT. What connection does it have with Citizen Dev, you might ask? It is huge, I would reply, although often neglected until now.
First, we need to understand that the shadow of Citizen Dev has loomed for decades. Every developer who has worked on enterprise software has, at some point, added that famous button: “Export to Excel,” opening Pandora’s box. This simple gesture has allowed, in the shadows, the explosion of thousands of Excel macros and other VBA lines of code created by Citizen Devs.
Today, this gesture must become conscious and thoughtful. A true guide or article is still missing to ask this key question: “What can I offer my Citizen Developer to optimize their experience with my software?”
Certainly, we have already mentioned the indispensable “Export to Excel,” but now we must also add APIs and self-service Data as a Product functionalities.
However, this reflection must not stop here. It is crucial to imagine additional features directly integrated into software to make the work of Citizen Devs even easier. This approach could lead to the creation of a “Citizen Dev Friendly” label, ensuring the application meets a specific set of requirements to respond to the growing needs of these autonomous users.
The moment has come to set up the runtime infrastructure for Citizen Developers.