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dashboard design 101

Dashboard Design 101 seeks to inform users with tips on how to improve the look and feel of dashboard layouts. Articles on this site are revised periodically when new dashboard design tips are released through DI's eNewsletter, DI Currents. Click here to sign up for the DI Currents newsletter now.

FUNDAMENTALS OF DESIGN Why is Dashboard Design important and why should you care? How does design work to improve dashboard layouts? What are the fundamental steps in any design practice? These questions are answered in a presentation from the 2009 Dimensional Insight's Users' Conference.
 to watch an excerpt from that presentation. Or,
 to download the slides from that presentation.

IDEAL NUMBER OF METRICS FOR A SINGLE DASHBOARD One of the toughest decisions to make when designing a dashboard and deciding what to put on the screen is: How many metrics should I include on one dashboard? CLICK HERE to read a discussion about influencing factors and advice on what to use.

OVERALL DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS: COLOR, FONTS & GRAPHICS Are you interested in making your DivePort interface more visually appealing? One easy way to "dress up" your DivePort interface is by leveraging the existing corporate look and feel of your own company. CLICK HERE to learn how.

CHOOSING A GRAPH TYPE You've seen the graphically rich dashboards The Diver Solution is capable of producing. These dashboards feature pie charts, bar charts, line charts, area graphs, gauges, and many other visual presentations of your data. But how do you know which type of graph or chart to use? It all depends on the type of data you need to display. CLICK HERE to learn more.

WHEN TO USE IMAGES When is it a good time to employ the use of photos or illustrations on your dashboards? As with all communication, it is important to consider the recipient of the communication and the content of that communication. Know your audience and how they process information. Determine what type of data will be communicated on the page. These two items alone should help you decide whether it is worth the effort to include imagery. CLICK HERE to learn more.

HIERARCHY OF INFORMATION Companies invest a lot of money in Business Intelligence software and therefore expect to receive information in an easy to view and intuitive format that will yield a rapid return on their BI investment. But at times, companies may be frustrated if they feel their BI tool's dashboard is not delivering adequate information to the organization's knowledge workers. The problem may lie in the hierarchy of information (or lack there of) provided by their dashboard design. This hierarchy must be decided upon prior to building and designing the dashboard. CLICK HERE to learn more.

CREATING DASHBOARDS FOR COLORBLIND USERS You may not realize it, but some of your users may be colorblind. Colorblindness is fairly common. 8% of Caucasian men, 5% of Asian men and 4% of African men have either Protanope (red-weak) or Deuteranope (green-weak) colorblindness 1. There are other kinds of color blindness, though less common, raising the number of all users who are colorblind to a percentage that is important not to ignore. If the issue is not addressed, these individuals will have great difficulty reading and interpreting color-coded information provided on your dashboards. CLICK HERE to learn more.

1 http://jfly.iam.u-tokyo.ac.jp/color/