CDOT Performance Data Business Plan - Cambridge Systematics

CDOT Performance Data Business Plan
Person, Ron. Balanced Scorecards & Operational Dashboards with MS Excel. Wiley Publishing, 2009
Dashboard Design Elements
Dashboard design is not meant only for aesthetics, but also for easy grasp of
actionable data and information. If a dashboard is poorly designed, it could
lead the user to erroneous conclusions or time-consuming misinterpretation.
So many options exist for building dashboards it is difficult not to employ so
much that the data gets lost in the design. Too much clutter leads to
confusion.
Experts cite three core principles of design:
Dashboards should fit on one single page;
Dashboards should be simple; and
Dashboards should use the best display medium for communicating data.
Agencies have different design approaches to dashboards. Whereas some
dashboards are visually rich, other dashboards are essentially tables. A
dashboard may be designed to display any combination of data summaries,
charts (e.g., bar charts, pie charts, histogram, function graph, scatter plot,
“sparklines,” etc.), graphs (tree diagram, network diagram, flowchart, etc.),
gauges, maps, or Venn diagrams.
Charts
Depending on the type of data to be presented, choices of types of charts are
numerous. It is important to consider the audience as well as the data when
choosing the type of visualizations for a dashboard.
Gauges, Menus and Sliders
Just as in effective website design, dashboards should give the reader the
information that they need without having to search for it. Undue visual
“noise” should be avoided and design elements should enhance rather than
clutter the dashboard.
Many transportation-related dashboards are created using elements such as
gauges and meters, and other dashboard images from cars. However, these
are not always the best method for representing data. Gauges use a lot of
space unnecessarily. Gauges and meters typically display a single key
measure, sometimes compared to a related measure such as a target, and
sometimes in the context of quantitative ranges with qualitative labels that
declare the measure’s state (such as good or bad). The bullet graph achieves
the communication objective without the problems that usually plague
gauges and meters. Bullet graphs are presented in more detail in Figure 5.17.
Menus are a necessary tool for on-line dashboards in order to drill-down to
more detailed and expansive data.
5-22 Cambridge Systematics, Inc.