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What Is A Dashboard
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Our Methodology
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Dashboard Security
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The Art of Dashboarding
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Key Dashboard Players
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"Dundas Consulting did a fantastic job and was able to deliver the final project in two weeks, as planned. We were particularly impressed with the responsiveness of our consultant, as well as his willingness to share his opinions about our needs. Since this was our first dashboard application, we appreciated his candor and experience - especially on the subject of user interfaces."
Mitesh Patel
Executive Technology Director, TMX Communications
• Be careful with using colors that are similar for pointers; this may make it hard for some users to distinguish between the pointers.
• Pick a base color as a starting point for one pointer and find complementing colors for the other pointer(s).
• If you need more than two pointers, you should rethink your gauge. You need to ask yourself, will the end user be able to read the pointers at a glance?
• Make sure to have a legend to distinguish pointers (most of the time there are at least two pointers, the actual value and a bench-marking value such as an average, a target, etc.). If you have multiple gauges showing the same metrics, a global legend can save you space and reduce the proliferation of redundant information on your dashboard.
• Gauge style (circular, linear) choice can be dependent on the kind of information you are presenting, but is usually dependent on the overall layout. For example, you�ll want to use linear or semi-circular gauges when the area you have to work with isn�t in a square aspect ratio and fully-circular gauges when the area is in a square aspect ratio.
• Use a neutral color for the background of the gauge to make the overlaid elements (such as the pointer and scale) pop.
• Pick a bold color for the actual value pointer and a complementing color for a target color. If a corporate color is neutral, then use a strong primary color such as blue or red as the pointer.
• For ranges, use colors that depict what the range implies, such as green to reflect a good range or red for bad.
• Labels for the scale should generally be kept at a minimum as they tend to overlap when you have many tick marks. Keeping a small font size (10pt) should also give more visibility to the scale.
