I'm working with an organization who wants to make a site that visualizes accessible government data as graphs. Currently they have an early version created in the form of a web app.
Right now I have some strong reservations about delivering thousands of automatically-generated graphs through a single-page web app. In my mind, a web app:
- Is best used in cases where users need to repeatedly preform a group of smaller, related tasks. In this case they would most likely be seeking a specific piece of information.
- Has limited SEO potential. Everyday citizens seeking government statistics usually turn to google first, and therefore may never hit our page.
- Has a steep learning curve. Doubled with the learning curve of understanding and contextualizing government data - yikes. Non-power users wouldn't likely be using it that often or for any length of time.
- Has potentially long loading times if, while drilling down, users hit a strata that happens to have hundreds of graphs.
Am I off-base on any of these? Are there any arguments in favor of using a web application to deliver dynamically generated content, from a usability perspective?