Information Dashboard Design

Dashboards have become popular in recent years as uniquely powerful tools for communicating important information at a glance. Although dashboards are potentially powerful, this potential is rarely realized. The greatest display technology in the world won't solve this if you fail to use effective visual design. And if a dashboard fails to tell you precisely what you need to know in an instant, you'll never use it, even if it's filled with cute gauges, meters, and traffic lights. Don't let your investment in dashboard technology go to waste. This book will teach you the visual design skills you need to create dashboards that communicate clearly, rapidly, and compellingly. "Information Dashboard Design will explain how to: Avoid the thirteen mistakes common to dashboard design Provide viewers with the information they need quickly and clearly Apply what we now know about visual perception to the visual presentation of information Minimize distractions, cliches, and unnecessary embellishments that create confusion Organize business information to support meaning and usability Create an aesthetically pleasing viewing experience Maintain consistency of design to provide accurate interpretation Optimize the power of dashboard technology by pairing it with visual effectiveness Stephen Few has over 20 years of experience as an IT innovator, consultant, and educator. As Principal of the consultancy Perceptual Edge, Stephen focuses on data visualization for analyzing and communicating quantitative business information. He provides consulting and training services, speaks frequently at conferences, and teaches in the MBA program at the University ofCalifornia in Berkeley. He is also the author of "Show Me the Numbers: Designing Tables and Graphs to Enlighten. Visit his website at www.perceptualedge.com.

Dashboards have become a popular means to present critical information for rapid monitoring, but few do this effectively. When designed well, dashboards engage the power of visual perception to communicate a dense collection of information efficiently, with exceptional clarity. This can only be achieved, however, by applying visual design skills that address the unique challenges of dashboards. These skills are not intuitive; they must be learned. The author teaches a comprehensive set of effective design practices through examples that reveal what works, what doesn't, and why.

The definitive reference book with real-world solutions you won't find anywhere else The Big Book of Dashboards presents a comprehensive reference for those tasked with building or overseeing the development of business dashboards. Comprising dozens of examples that address different industries and departments (healthcare, transportation, finance, human resources, marketing, customer service, sports, etc.) and different platforms (print, desktop, tablet, smartphone, and conference room display) The Big Book of Dashboards is the only book that matches great dashboards with real-world business scenarios. By organizing the book based on these scenarios and offering practical and effective visualization examples, The Big Book of Dashboards will be the trusted resource that you open when you need to build an effective business dashboard. In addition to the scenarios there's an entire section of the book that is devoted to addressing many practical and psychological factors you will encounter in your work. It's great to have theory and evidenced-based research at your disposal, but what will you do when somebody asks you to make your dashboard 'cooler' by adding packed bubbles and donut charts? The expert authors have a combined 30-plus years of hands-on experience helping people in hundreds of organizations build effective visualizations. They have fought many 'best practices' battles and having endured bring an uncommon empathy to help you, the reader of this book, survive and thrive in the data visualization world. A well-designed dashboard can point out risks, opportunities, and more; but common challenges and misconceptions can make your dashboard useless at best, and misleading at worst. The Big Book of Dashboards gives you the tools, guidance, and models you need to produce great dashboards that inform, enlighten, and engage.

Focusing on designing the right dashboards for use in an organization, this timely, full color book reveals how to successfully deploy dashboards by building the optimal software architecture and dashboard design. In addition, it describes the value of this popular technology to a business and how it can have a significant impact on performance improvement. A unique collection of more than 120 dashboard images are organized by category. One of the chapters provides a step-by-step description of the key performance indicator (KPIs) design process. One of the appendices contains more than 1,000 examples of KPIs to help design the content of dashboards. The book also describes all the steps in a dashboard implementation and offers related advice. Nils Rasmussen (West Hollywood, CA) is cofounder and Principal of Solver, Inc. Claire Y. Chen (Long Beach, CA) is a Senior Business Intelligence Architect at Solver, Inc. Manish Bansal (Irvine, CA) is Vice President of Sales at Solver, Inc.

With the information in Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007, you can learn the best practices for managing business performance using Office PerformancePoint 2007 and related Microsoft tools. The specific end-user scenarios begin by describing the business requirements and objectives and end with detailed technical guidance for implementing performance management solutions. Leverage PerformancePoint with other key technologies, including SharePoint Server, SQL Server Business Intelligence tools and Office Excel and Excel Services. Use PerformancePoint for common performance management scenarios, including scorecarding, dashboarding, reporting, analysis, planning, budgeting and forecasting.

Enterprise Dashboards: Design and Best Practices for IT is a one-stop resource of methodology and best practices for this dynamic and relevant information platform, packed with charts, reports, visual indicators, and alert mechanisms, all consolidated in a rich computer interface. This powerful book is both a guide and a handbook. It helps business leaders understand dashboarding while considering dashboards for their information needs and outlines a tested and proven, step-by-step implementation framework. Enterprise Dashboards covers strategies, vendor selections, execution steps, project milestones, dashboard types, case studies contributed by DaimlerChrysler, Emergency Medical Associates, and ING Direct, and more. Enterprise Dashboards: Design and Best Practices for IT is the perfect tool to help COOs, CIOs, CFOs, CTOs, IT managers, business intelligence managers, information analysts, and software consultants be successful at dashboard implementation.

A dashboard is a collection of data visualization tools that provide the means to quickly get an overview of how an organization or a section of an organization is performing. Industries such as sales and manufacturing use dashboards extensively, but dashboards are quickly being adapted across all types of profit and non-profit organizations. THE DESIGN OF INFORMATION DASHBOARDS USING SAS is a nuts and bolts guide to building information dashboards using SAS software. The primary audience for this book is SAS programmers charged with developing dashboards for their organization. This audience would include data managers, report writers, and business analysts. A secondary audience includes business mangers and non-programmers who are just hoping to learn a little more about the potential of the technology. The first four chapters provide background on the science of dashboards and related concepts. The remaining chapters cover coding and design of dashboard elements using SAS software. By providing clear, well-structured examples, the volume shows the reader how to quickly and easily construct basic dashboards that are suitable to their unique needs and environment. SAS users familiar with the basics of SAS and the fundamentals of SAS/GRAPH software will be able to make small changes to the sample code contained in the book to design simple dashboards. Advanced users with more extensive knowledge of SAS/GRAPH and the annotate facility will be able to more fully customize the sample code to fit a variety of needs. CHAPTER DESCRIPTIONS Chapter I. AN INTRODUCTION TO DASHBOARDS The first chapter defines precisely what dashboards are and their common characteristics. Following a brief history of information dashboards, the chapter discusses their value, as well as some negatives, and describes current use and trends. Finally, the value that SAS contributes to producing the medium is introduced. Chapter II. SEVEN STEPS TO CREATING A DASHBOARD The development of a dashboard often requires a substantial investment of time and money, so designers should do it thoughtfully. The goal of this chapter is to guide the reader through the dashboard development process. The chapter provides an overview of the major steps involved, including preparation, design, construction, and maintenance of dashboards. Chapter III. ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF A DASHBOARD When you create your dashboard, several essential elements should be present on the interface to make the dashboard maximally effective. The third chapter covers these essential components of a dashboard. Chapter IV. BEST PRACTICES IN DASHBOARD VISUAL DESIGN This chapter covers the foundations of good dashboard design and addresses the contributions of Edward Tufte and Stephen Few to the area. The chapter delves into the science of visual perception and how to apply them to good dashboard design. Chapter V. CREATING DASHBOARD KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS USING SAS The fifth chapter presents a library of effective dashboard display media and discusses how to produce them using SAS coding. Programmers will be able to pick and choose those chart types that are most appropriate for their particular dashboard. Strengths and weaknesses of the various chart types are discussed. This chapter will also introduces new SAS procedures such as PROC GKPI. Chapter VI. ASSEMBLING AND DISTRIBUTING SAS DASHBOARDS This chapter describes how to bring all the visual components together to produce a single dashboard display. PROC GREPLAY, ODSLAYOUT, and ODS TAGSETS are described as the methods of choice. Methods of distributing this output are described. Chapter VII. DESIGING DASHBOARDS USING SAS BI DASHBOARDS The final chapter briefly describes the design of dashboards using SAS BI Dashboards business intelligence software. For a limited time use the following code for 10% off your purchase on this site: F46FRNCS This title is also available for purchase on Amazon.com.

This edited volume fills the gaps in existing literature on visualization and dashboard design for learning analytics. To do so, it presents critical tips to stakeholders and acts as guide to efficient implementation. The book covers the following topics: visualization and dashboard design for learning analytics, visualization and dashboard preferences of stakeholders, learners’ patterns on the dashboard, usability of visualization techniques and the dashboard, dashboard and intervention design, learning and instructional design for learning analytics, privacy and security issues about the dashboard, and future directions of visualization and dashboard design. This book will be of interest to researchers with interest in learning analytics and data analytics, teachers and students in higher education institutions and instructional designers, as it includes contributions from a wide variety of educational and psychological researchers, engineers, instructional designers, learning scientists, and computer scientists interested in learning analytics.