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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the usability of the dimensional view of data in the context of its presumed learnability. Design/methodology/approach In total, 303 participants were asked to solve 12 analytical problems in an experiment using the dimensional view of data for half of the problems and an operational view of data for the other half. Inferential statistics and structural equation modeling were performed with participants’ objective results and affective reactions. Findings Showing that the order of exposure to the two views of data impacts the overall usability of ad hoc querying, the study provided evidence for the learnability potential of the dimensional view of data. Furthermore, the study showed that affective reactions to the different views of data follow objective usability parameters in a way that can be explained using models from affective computing research. Practical implications The paper proposes a list of guidelines for use of the dimensional view of data in business analytics. Originality/value This study is the first to confirm the learnability of the dimensional view of data and the first to take a deeper look at affective reactions to an ad hoc business analytics solution. Also, it is one of few studies that examined the usability of different views of data directly on these views, rather than using paper representations of data models.

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