“People always ask for more than they can use, and more than they need. Less is more.” Today’s brief missive is devoted to the eyes-are-bigger-than-the-stomach syndrome — in this case with regard to real-time business intelligence (BI).

Analyst Roy Schulte, the Gartner Inc. expert quoted above, was talking about the mistakes to be avoided when presenting operational BI. (Let’s ignore for now the semantic debate about whether real-time BI and operational BI are one and the same.) The point he was making is that when it comes to the intelligence aimed at decision making in the moment, both digital providers and digital users err on the side of too much. Our stomach for information is bigger than our capacity to process it.

The result is that the pertinent data is obscured and people are overwhelmed with information they thought they needed to help them work — but don’t. Less is more.

Schulte offered the advice at a session at the recent Gartner Symposium/ITxpo show. Here are three pointers that will improve operational BI.

One. Don’t junk it up with pictures.

Nonessential clip art, logos and decorations actually slow down decision making. Unless you’re a genius at accessorizing — and maybe even if you are — don’t go there. The 3-D graphics that are all the rage in BI reports? Also a no-no. They can obscure the attributes you are trying to show.