As enterprises and other organizations look to sift through and make sense of the all the structured and unstructured data available to them, dashboards are being positioned as the solution to their problems. However, a dashboard needs special attention to the visual design or the dashboard will fail to meet expectations. If not carefully designed, a new dashboard can leave consumers unsatisfied, frustrated, confused, and even overwhelmed. Aaron Hursman shares his experiences designing effective dashboards that deliver on the promise of targeted, accessible, and actionable information. He discusses examples from both his personal work and contributions of thought-leaders in this space. Through these examples, he presents practical dashboard design techniques. He also presents effective approaches to take during design and construction. Finally, Aaron explains the challenges and obstacles that dashboard designers face today, and how to mitigate the risks that result. [Originally presented to RefreshDallas, 16 Oct 2008]

1. EFFECTIVE
DASHBOARD
DESIGN
AARON HURSMAN

2. WHERE
DO WE
BEGIN?
2

3. “
A dashboard is a visual display of
the most important information
needed to achieve one or more
objectives, consolidated and
arranged on a single screen so
the information can be
monitored at a glance.
3

4. 4

5. FOCUS
ON THE
USER
5

6. DESIGN
TECHNIQUES
6

7. 7

8. 8

9. 9

10. 10

11. KEY
11

12. WEEKS OF
SUPPLY
BEGINNING INVENTORY
ENDING INVENTORY
TURNOVER
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22. CREDIT: MICROCHARTS FROM BUENA VISTA SYSTEMS
22

23. CREDIT: MICROCHARTS FROM BUENA VISTA SYSTEMS
23

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41. CREDIT: STEPHEN FEW, PERCEPTUAL EDGE
41

42. 42
CREDIT: MICROCHARTS FROM BUENA VISTA SYSTEMS

43. CREDIT: MICROCHARTS FROM BUENA VISTA SYSTEMS

44. 44

46. CHALLENGES
46

47. 47

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49. 49

50. 1st Qtr
2nd Qtr
6 3rd Qtr
5 4th Qtr
4
3
2 Series 1
1 Series 2
0 Series 3
6
4
2 4-6
Series 3
0 2-4
Series 1
0-2
50

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53. Aaron Hursman Dashboard Spy
http://aaron.hursman.com http://dashboardspy.com/
Hitachi Consulting Dashboards by Example
http://hitachiconsulting.com http://tinyurl.com/6kktla
Perceptual Edge (Stephen Few) Junk Charts
http://www.perceptualedge.com/ http://tinyurl.com/453a2t
BonaVista (MicroCharts) Bad Charts & Dashboards
http://www.bonavistasystems.com/ http://tinyurl.com/3mdcw3
Edward Tufte Dundas Data Visualization
http://www.edwardtufte.com/ http://dundas.com/
Juice Analytics BI Scorecard Blog
http://juiceanalytics.com/ http://tinyurl.com/3tjkxe
Jorge Camoes Charts SNL’s Bad Idea Jeans
http://charts.jorgecamoes.com/ http://tinyurl.com/63rxqz
53

54. thx
AARON HURSMAN