Good data, great dashboards
Are you seeing the value in your data?
In this series the team at White Box takes a look at visualisation best practice, covering all manner of dashboarding techniques to optimise your reporting tools.
Want to see more tips? Check them out here.
Storytelling is a refrain in corporate presentations, personal CVs, media messaging, the list goes on. And yes, that list includes dashboards.
It’s a neat idea. Everyone loves a story of course, and they are typically easy to digest thanks to a familiarity of structure.
However, I liken many dashboards that I’ve seen to my 10 year old talking to me about an awesome book he’s just read. I ask what it’s about and he proceeds to tell me just about every detail of every action and piece of dialogue until I twig that this is going to take a while. He’s telling me the story – the entire story.
In dashboard terms, this might be the transcript of many we see.
“Well, in July last year we made $112K in revenue. Then in August last year…”
“And what happened in the Eastern division?”
“Well, in July last year we made $96K in revenue. Then in August last year…”
Note: a full year bar chart isn’t to be dismissed out of hand. It might be just the right visual to demonstrate a trend or an exception. But it also might be occupying half the screen at the expense of other measures that give you much more powerful feedback.
So where do we want to land?
What we really need is a spoiler-laden trailer. Get to the heart of the matter as quickly as possible with high level, high impact displays that tell the story, quickly. The best dashboards don’t provide detailed verification, rather they engender trust in endpoints that facilitate fast understanding.
Visualisation tools provide ample opportunity for drill-throughs, drill-downs, hover notes and data exports to provide supporting information to those who enjoy a good read. However when it comes to time-poor decision makers, get to the point as fast as you can!
We specialise in data visualisation at White Box
We can illuminate your data so that you can make the right, unbiased decisions for your organisation.
As your partner in data visualisation - Power BI, Tableau, Qlik, Looker and more - we’ll help you see the full potential of your data and maximise your business success through advanced and innovative solutions that make all the difference.
Get in touch today for your free data strategy consultation.
