Global Sponsor:

Dashboard Design

Stacia Misner, Business Intelligence Author and Consultant

Dos and Don’ts

Overview

What Is It With Dashboards?

Effective Dashboard Design

Dashboard Makeover Action Plan

What Is It With Dashboards?

Dashboard Metaphor

How fast are you going?

How much fuel remains?

Does anything need your attention?

13 Design Don’ts

aka Common Mistakes in Dashboard Design

Photo: Zach Klein / Creative Commons

See Stephen Few, Information Dashboard Design

Navigation Interference

Vertical or horizontal scrolling required

Multiple pages for “single” dashboard

Missing Context

Values displayed without benchmark

Gauges without supporting details

Too Much Detail

Too much precision in values

Wrong Measurement

Significance of variance difficult to compare as two lines

Meaningless Variety

Different types of charts send different messages

Wrong Visualization

Pie charts not always best choice for comparisons

3D obscures data points

Bad Design

Values in legend interrupt perception

Skewing Results

Scale break alters perception of relative sizes

Scale started at value other than 0 has similar result

Unhelpful Arrangement

Flow from one item to another does not add insight

Inappropriate (or No) Emphasis

Use of styling implies greater importance Bold

Color

Lines

Underlines

Italics

Borders

Clutter

Too many items on a page distract from message

Background image adds nothing useful

Multiple links to similar report types wastes valuable space

Color

Hot colors demand attention and distract from message

Just Plain Ugly

People likely won’t use a dashboard that is unattractive

Effective Dashboard Design

Remember the Dashboard’s Purpose

Maintain Key Design Principles

Plan the Arrangement for Best Communication

Remember the Dashboard’s Purpose

Visual display

of most important information needed

to achieve one or more objectives

which

fits entirely on a single computer screen

so it can be

monitored at a glance

--Stephen Few, Information Dashboard Design

Maintain Key Design Principles

Minimize non-data elements

Be ruthless and eliminate whatever you can!

If it must stay, reduce its emphasis (size, color, borders)

Maximize data elements

Eliminate data that does not add to immediate insight

Draw attention to most important data elements

Plan the Arrangement for Best

Communication

It’s all about relationships – define them visually

Use relationships to organize data by function, entity, or data

source

Use white space or subtle borders to create distinctions between

groups

Enhance the message with supporting information

Add comparative measures

Use percentages to better communicate differences

Be consistent with color and font

Link to details or enable filtering

Dashboard Makeover Action Plan

Identify Dashboard Type and Audience

Identify Metrics

Select Visualization

Add Support and Interaction

Keep It Simple

Identify Dashboard Types and Audiences

Strategic Operational

Summary of overall

health

Progress on long-

term goals and

strategic objectives

Historical

Executive audience

Snapshot of current

operations

Clear meaning

Link to action or

information

Real-time

Department focus

Analytic

Supports comparisons,

review of history,

evaluate performance

Drill into causes

Needs feedback loop

– establish goals to

course-correct

Don’t take cookie-cutter approach

Do consider unique needs of each audience

Identify Metrics

What is the question that must be answered? Proper metric

What does success look like?

What does a problem look like?

What are top 5-10 that you must know all the time?

What does audience need to know? Proper detail

Include timely summary information on dashboard

Link to supporting details

What does the audience need to do? Proper action

What must happen next?

Do focus on goals and critical information

Select Visualization

http://img.labnol.org/di/choosing_a_good_chart2.pdf

Add Support and Interaction

Add Supporting Information

Simple lists of issues and tasks

Schedules of due dates and people assigned

Filter

Additional web part to prompt user for selection

Connect to multiple web parts to apply to related content

Drill / Link

Simple lists of issues and tasks

Schedules of due dates and

people assigned

Action to perform next

Don’t require too much manual intervention

Do make it easy to take steps in response to information

Keep It Simple

Start Simple

Start with 3 metrics

Focus on trends rather than 2 point-in-time comparisons

Don’t try to use every available features

Let the dashboard evolve

Get user feedback early and often

Revisit the choice of metrics periodically – business is dynamic!

Presenting the Dashboard Makeover…

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