#mstrworld. Best Practices for Enterprise Caliber Dashboard Design

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1 Best Practices for Enterprise Caliber Dashboard Design

2 Agenda What is Visual Design Design Principles Challenges Characteristics of a Dashboard Good Practices Q & A 2

3 What is Visual Design? Who? (Roles) Audience When? (Times of access Helps determine granularity and summarizations required) Visual Design What? (Exceptions, alerts, role based content) Content Presentation How? (Display or medium colors, widgets, order, drilling, visualizations)

4 Thinking Visual design If done right, the user will be able to : 1. Understand why the problem occurred and 2. Determine what to do about it 4

5 Recap Basic principles LINES Eyes always follow the lines COLORS Use to highlight certain elements PROPORTIONS Use for Emphasis and Context CONTRAST Readability should come first 3D Not always a value add 5

6 Designing Dashboards Common Challenges Giving/Receiving Dashboard Requirements Lack of understanding of What s available in the tool and/or What can be done in the tool. Focusing on technology capabilities than the information itself Lack of training or expertise on design aspect Too much emphasis on looks than information 6

7 Understanding the USER Dashboard Users most often are looking for: Fast access to data Gathering the information is not as useful, rather Consuming the information is their main goal Their job does not revolve around dashboards Very little patience or time to wait for the information to be rendered Some Users (Ex. Analysts) want to be autonomous to certain degree they want to be the ones to deduce the information and not have them presented with conclusions. Hence the term: Self Service 7

8 Psychology of Dashboards Dashboards, we believe, should have the following characteristics: 9

9 Psychology of Dashboards Dashboards, we believe, should have the following characteristics: Informative 10

10 Psychology of Dashboards Dashboards, we believe, should have the following characteristics: Informative Easy of Use 11

11 Psychology of Dashboards Dashboards, we believe, should have the following characteristics: Informative Easy of Use Interactivity 12

12 Psychology of Dashboards Dashboards, we believe, should have the following characteristics: Informative Easy of Use Interactivity Stylish 13

13 Psychology of Dashboards Dashboards, we believe, should have the following characteristics: Informative Easy of Use Interactivity Stylish Deductive 14

14 Psychology of Dashboards Dashboards, we believe, should have the following characteristics: Informative Easy of Use Interactivity Stylish Deductive Actionable 15

15 Informative Easy to Use Interactive Stylish Deductive Actionable Anything that converts the data into insights is Informative. Design around Business processes, NOT around Data Lets consider we have the following Data: Sales This year Sales Last year Sales by Product Category Sales by Geo regions 16

16 Informative Easy to Use Interactive Stylish Deductive Actionable Sales This Year $$$$$ Last Year $$$$ Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Sales - TY Sales - LY Sales by Region Sales by Product Geo 1 Geo 2 Geo 3 Geo 4 Product 1 Product 2 Product 3 Product 4 17

17 Informative Easy to Use Interactive Stylish Deductive Actionable What we just did was to put these pieces of information together to create a dashboard. But have we really transformed the data into useful information or better yet, insights? 18

18 Informative Easy to Use Interactive Stylish Deductive Actionable Sales This Year $$$$$ Last Year $$$$ Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Sales - TY Sales - LY So, What s Missing? Sales by Region Sales by Product Geo 1 Geo 2 Geo 3 Geo 4 Product 1 Product 2 Product 3 Product 4 19

19 Informative Easy to Use Interactive Stylish Deductive Actionable Design around Business processes, NOT around Data Context Follow the Line of Thought Go from a higher level Summary KPIs to a detailed exploration of data Home Page or Main Container Most Important metrics first, followed by explanation of why they are that way, then followed by supplemental metrics and finally detailed data 20

20 Informative Easy to Use Interactive Stylish Deductive Actionable The top 5 things to make your dashboards informative: 1. KPIs Most current value for the Context Most current State of Business Most Relevant information 2. Trends 3. Comparisons Time based Category or Geography based 4. Alerts or Exceptions Thresholds Alerts 5. Relative Performance To other related business functions Internal Competition fostering metrics (Ranks) Competitor information 21

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22 What makes it work: KPI Bar: Current State of business Ready trend, following line of thought, supporting curiosity Details on Top performers: again supporting line of thought and natural next question tendency 23

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24 What makes it work: Urgent, important, Actionable information Business context and KPIs for all necessary business functions in one place Overall simplicity of presentation, colors, arrangement, all visual principles applied 25

25 Informative Easy to Use Interactive Stylish Deductive Actionable Easy to Read Easy to Understand Easy to Navigate Fewer Clicks Centered around a workflow 26

26 Informative Easy to Use Interactive Stylish Deductive Actionable Easy to Read Easy to Understand Easy to Navigate Fewer Clicks Centered around a workflow 27

27 Informative Easy to Use Interactive Stylish Deductive Actionable Easy to Read Easy to Understand Easy to Navigate Fewer Clicks Centered around a workflow 28

28 Informative Easy to Use Interactive Stylish Deductive Actionable Easy to Read Easy to Understand Easy to Navigate Fewer Clicks Centered around a workflow 29

29 Informative Easy to Use Interactive Stylish Deductive Actionable Elements of Interactivity Not more than 3 clicks Not more than 3 selectors Info windows only on certain elements If there is a drill down enabled, the users should have a way to get back to their previous screen Too much of anything is a bad idea 30

30 Which music player would you prefer? 31

31 Informative Easy to Use Interactive Stylish Deductive Actionable Form AND Function! Use Updated Icons Use Icons in place of words. Sleeker buttons Avoid using a lot of darker colors together Use Gradients of the same color instead of contrasting colors 32

32 Informative Easy to Use Interactive Stylish Deductive Actionable Support the most natural tendency of asking and answering the question Why? Self Service integration Support a workflow Support the navigation to details for analysis 33

33 Informative Easy to Use Interactive Stylish Deductive Actionable Comes automatically with supporting a workflow Design simple transactions Preferably keep the number of actions on a dashboard limited to avoid overload and confusion Keep the transaction option very relevant to the problem at hand and the information presented should allow them to complete the transaction. 34

34 Examples Informative Easy to Use Interactive Stylish Deductive Actionable 35

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36 Demo 37

37 Demo Transactions

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42 Measuring Success The real test of the design of your application is in the Adoption. - Needs both: Form and Function Adoption should be measured at least at the following milestones: - Immediately after release - 3 months into release - Periodically in 3 or 6 months thereafter 43

43 Measuring Success Remember, there is no such thing as a Perfect design. So, if your users are not coming back to you with feedback either about looks or functionality and asking for more, then there is very little success achieved. Successful design always results in more demand. 44

44 Thank you