By far the most common type of user who will access data from an SDI will be data consumers. This is a broad term that can be used to describe anyone within an organization who will take and use data that has been captured, created, or generated for the purpose of decision making or informing other business processes. These users will not typically create spatial information, though the spatial information they consume might contribute to some other form of output. For example, a data consumer within a department might take the results of spatial analysis (in the form of a map) and then include it in a report to be delivered to the senior management. The data consumer has not done anything to manipulate the data; they have simply consumed it and placed it inside their report.

Within an SDI, you will most likely provide data consumers with access to data through a visualization platform; this can be a custom web application, an off-the-shelf web application...