1. Dashboard design
Dashboards are powerful decision-support tools that combine visual techniques and analytics to display information.
2. Why design is important?
Take the example of NASDAQ, an electronic stock exchange marketplace that does not have a physical trading location.
How can NASDAQ communicate to the average investor what is happening in the stock market every day?
To address this challenge, NASDAQ created a video wall at Times Square displaying real-time, single-value indicators on the current state of the market.
Now imagine what would happen if NASDAQ replaced the single-value indicator with trend lines.
3. Why design is important?
You will gain insights into the historical performance but you will lose the real-time trading signals that are important for stock exchange traders.
So, it is critical to have a well-designed dashboard that provides decision-makers with the right information at the right time.
4. Design components
Dashboard design is centered on the audience,
starting with identifying who will be using the dashboard,
their specific needs,
what format will be the most suitable,
and frequency of access.
The next step is to establish how the dashboard should look and function to best serve the audience.
The purpose of the dashboard defines its functionality and user interaction. It could be exploration or explanation.
The format is often based on how the audience will be viewing the dashboard.
The layout should support the flow of information and help the audience to answer their questions.
Visual components are determined by key metrics and represent various values, dimensions, and shapes.
Let's now focus on the design components.
5. Dashboard purpose
Should the dashboard be exploratory or explanatory? This will determine the level of user interaction and decision-making.
An exploratory dashboard allows users to explore data.
An explanatory dashboard comes with some predetermined points and stories that you want to explain to the user.
Let's look at some of their characteristics.
6. Exploratory dashboard
The exploratory dashboard tends to have filters for custom data segmentation,
7. Exploratory dashboard
customizable navigation panels to enable more choices for exploration,
8. Exploratory dashboard
drill-downs for a more granular data view,
9. Exploratory dashboard
and more interactive visuals to engage users to test their hypotheses and find useful insights.
10. Explanatory dashboard
The explanatory dashboards most often have fewer filters and interactions as data has been already filtered down to tell a story.
These dashboards are built with predefined storylines explaining things that have happened
and they are common with presentations to executives,
as they provide actionable insights.
11. Dashboard size
The next step is to determine what kind of physical space is needed for dashboard users.
Monitor size is a diagonal length of the screen.
The standard metrics range from 5 inches for phones to 22 inches for desktops.
12. Dashboard size
Screen resolution refers to the number of pixels. This can affect the clarity of the image projected.
Choosing the dashboard format is the next important step.
The standard format is a rectangular dashboard.
The common dimension ratio is 16:9, where
all dashboard components are visible on the screen and
it is not intended for scrolling.
The long format is less common. The horizontal scrolling can be useful for telling a story, like a timeline dashboard.
13. Dashboard size
The vertical format reads very much like a long-column style in newspapers and is often used in mobile applications.
14. Dashboard layout
Next, it is important to consider the layout.
Typically, dashboard layouts use a 2-dimensional grid system
that is balanced and symmetrical,
and easy to navigate.
High-level KPI metrics, also known as BANs, are often grouped on the top level for visibility.
It is also important to consider the flow of information on the dashboard.
The F-pattern is the most common eye-scanning pattern for web content. Imagine the letter F. Viewers' eyes tend to scan the top left first, making it a prime location for key information such as KPIs.
The bottom right tends to be the least viewed part of the dashboard.
15. Let's practice!
Let's examine dashboard layouts in practice.