Dashboards

DashboardingChris Sietsema

March 1, 2010

What We Will Discuss

• Visual Design

• Technology

• Maintaining & Delivering Value

Why Use Dashboards?

• Organize Important Information…for speedy interpretation

• Make Decisions Easier

• Maintain / Increase Client Confidence

A Common Issue

• Are you satisfied with your current approach to measurement?

ISITE Design 2010 Web Strategy ReportSurvey of 268 Organizations

Not More Data.Rather, The Right Data.

Three Elements

1. Visual Display

Three Elements

2. Single Page / Screen

Three Elements

3. Most Important Info

Dashboards Can Also Be…

• Bi-Directional

• Alert Generating

• Always On & Online

Common Problems

Too Much

Poor DisplayPoor Display

Poor or Confusing Math

The Human Brain

Short Term Memory

• One Screen, No Scrolling

7 ± 2

Visual Encoding

FINISHED FILES ARE THE RESULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY COMBINED WITH THE

EXPERIENCE OF YEARS

Visual Encoding

HOW MANY

F’S

Visual Encoding

FINISHED FILES ARE THE RESULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY COMBINED WITH THE

EXPERIENCE OF YEARS

Visual Encoding

Careful Balance

PrettyINFORMATIVE

The Dashboard is a Utility,Not a Piece of Art.

Placement & Orientation

1 .1 .2 ^

2 ^

2 2

3 311

Creating Your Dashboard

What’s the Goal?

• Corporate– What is the business objective?– “We Need to Accomplish X”

• Personal– How is your primary contact measured?– “If we do Y, I get a bonus!”

Beware of HiPPOsBeware of HiPPOs

“Highest Paid Person’s Opinion”

Avinash Kaushik – Occam’s Razor

Select Metrics Carefully

Transactions

Traffic

Bounce Rate

Clickthrough Rate

Sentiment

Revenue per Recipient

AOV

Sales Revenue

Cost Per Lead

Market Share

Top 10 Products

Most Productive Keywords

Focus on The Finish Line

Assign the Appropriate Display

Bar Graphs

• Multiple measure comparison• Allows for clear visual comparison of data• Nominal, Ordinal & Interval comparisons

Bar Graphs

• Stacked bars allow for contrast between parts of a whole

• Requires less real estate than pie charts• Example above is an ordinal comparison

Line Graphs

• Show historical data• Greater detail than bar graph for timelines• Displays movement of data

Bullet Graphs

• Actual vs. Target Measurements

• Key measures can be compared

• Saves space while conveying the point

• Many prefer to gauges

• http://bit.ly/bulletgraph

Scatter Plots

• Defines correlations between data sets• Helps answer the question, “is there a

relationship between these values?”

Choose Your ToolChoose Your Tool

Tools

• Google Analytics Custom Reports

Tools

• Off the Shelf Tools

Tools

• Off the Shelf Tools

Tools

You don’t have to be a

Tools

• Google Charts (requires developer)

Final Steps

1. Create

2. Maintain

3. Get Feedback

4. Continuously Improve

Questions?

• Chris Sietsema

• @sietsema• linkedin.com/in/sietsema• 480.389.5435

Slide-ography

• 6 | Owl - EraPhernalia Vintage on flickr Creative Commons• 5 | Television – dailyinvention on flickr Creative Commons• 8 | Important Bench – Valerie Everett on flickr Creative Commons• 10 | Sample Dashboard from Information Dashboard Design by Stephen Few• 11 | Pm5d mixing board from Yamaha Audio• 12 | Crayon Drawing – mpclemens on flickr Creative Commons• 13 | Sequent calculus for classical linear logic on Wikimedia Commons• 14 | Brain – perpetualplum on flickr Creative Commons• 20 | Scale of Justice on Wikimedia Commons• 23 | VW Dashboard – jepoirrier on flickr Creative Commons• 25 | Hippo – Giles Douglas on flickr Creative Commons• 27 | Checkered Flag – tharrin on flickr Creative Commons• 34 | Tools – denise carbonell on flickr Creative Commons• 36 | Olympic Dashboard – iDashboards• 37 | Product Tour Dashboards – Tableau Software• 40 | Sample Dashboard from GilliganOnData.com