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Executive Technology Director, TMX Communications

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The Art of Dashboarding

5.0 Map Styling

5.1 Map Taxonomy

5.2 Tips And Tricks

• Use a neutral color for "the sea."
• Be careful with using colors that are similar; this may make it hard for some users to distinguish between color coded shapes.

• For a negative-to-positive color-coded map, use a hot-to-cold range of colors.

• Position your legend in such a manner that it least interferes with the visibility of the map regions. If you�re having problems achieving this, consider changing the aspect ratio of your map to allow for more blank space to tinker with so you can get an acceptable result.

• If the map is not a color-coded map, a neutral color that complements a corporate color should be used to fill in the shape(s). See Fig. 5.2d

• Color the borders of the map regions with either a dark-gray/black or with a darker tone of the overall color already used in the regions. This�ll usually result in a clean and elegant look for the map.

6.0 Dashboard Styling

Dashboard styling is hard to generalize; however, this section will hopefully give you some base templates from which to work.

Figure 6.1 depicts a classic dashboard layout where you have space for branding, space for dashboard filters, and finally the area where the data visualization components will reside. There are many variations of this layout; e.g., the filters may be in a left column panel, there may be navigation tabs above the filters, and there may not be any filters at all.

As for the dashboard content, here are two common layouts that might work for you:

Remember, the KPIs you have decided to show should drive the layout design and not the other way around. If you take the converse approach, you may start discovering additional KPIs that need space or KPIs that must be removed due to a lack of space.

7.0 Summary

I�ve covered very basic color theory points, data visualization styling points, and overall dashboard layouts. The biggest consideration to take home with color theory is picking light colors for the majority of the space. If you are artistically challenged like me, sticking with white as your predominant back color will get you a long way. Fonts should be taken seriously, but if you don�t care to think about it, stick with Trebuchet MS and Verdana and you should be okay. With overall dashboard layouts, keep in mind that you can start with one of the basic layouts described here and through feedback, you can tweak accordingly. Ideally, your dashboard will go into the hands of a graphic artist, but if you are a one-person show - or you have no graphics person on hand - this article may help in creating a more visually appealing dashboard.