Unless we’re careful, we dashboard designers may fall into the trap of becoming ivory tower theorists. Isolated from the nitty gritty of real life, we would be unable to tie our dashboards to the real wants and needs of our users. How so? Well, in designing a dashboard, we explore several fields that rely heavily on theory and fundamentals: usability, cognitive behavior, information visualization, data graphing and representation, graphic design, etc. In all these fields, we avidly read the rules and practices espoused by the core group of experts (often opinionated, always persuasive!) and sometimes risk going overboard and putting theory before the flexibility required by actual users. It’s easy to think that we (or the gurus) know best, when, in actuality, it’s the users (yes - contentious statement).

To turn this thought into a case study with a real, implemented business dashboard, let’s consider the situation today regarding rising gasoline prices. Sure, it’s hurting all of us, but those people in states with higher gas taxes really feel the pinch. Take a look at this great listing of state sales, gas, cig and alc. taxes. The gas taxes are used in various ways. In fact, they typically go to a multitude of different state agencies to fund projects of all sorts.

It’s in times of rising prices (and short tempers) that tax payers demand visibility into how their tax dollars are being spent. Management transparency becomes an absolute requirement by the public. Of course, the web and the rise of management dashboards fit this need very well.

The Washington State Transportation Improvement Board (TIB) has taken a major step in terms of management transparency by putting onto their public website, an extensive performance dashboard. The TIB GMAP Dashboard was launched to the public on May 1, 2008 and provides visiblity of KPIs and metrics for the projects funded by their share of the tax revenue.

Getting back to the theme of real user needs versus ivory-tower thinking, this dashboard application shows the balance that can be struck between design principals and real-world contraints. It’s not the most “correct” BI dashboard implementation out there, but it will certainly be a hit with the users. The choice of Xcelsius and its flash-based interactivity has some nice glitz to it. While some charts and graphs may be better designed from an information visualization point of view, the level of utility is high. Check out the screenshot below of the use of sparklines to show historic trends - nice!.

After 4 years of internal use, user feedback and constant iteration, the team had confidence that the public would find not only great utility in the data, but a satisfaction from seeing how their tax dollars were being put to use. It took 4 years of evolution and listening to constituents that got the TIB to their current level of transparency. Good job!

Here is a screenshot of the Xcelsius dashboard:

If you are on the front page of the Dashboards By Example blog, be sure to click on the following “more” link to see the rest of this post as there will be a great video of this flash-based dashboard as well as more screenshots and business case documentation.

» Read more about this business intelligence dashboard example: Management Transparency through Dashboards ............

Do you have pie chart graphs on your business dashboard? Everyone loves the pie chart. Business users love to casually use (and abuse) it as it’s the first graph that comes to mind. And as for you data visualization experts out there among the Dashboard Spy readers, admit it - you just love to hate the pie chart because of it’s constant misuse. (See Don’t Eat the Dashboard Pie Chart)

We’ve looked at the history of the pie chart, so now let’s ask: “What is the future of the pie chart?”. Of course, it will always continue as the defacto first choice among the information visualization newbies, but can it evolve into a variant worthy of advanced infovis use?

Well, there are advanced uses of the pie chart as demonstrated in the article by Jon Peltier, Pie of Pie Charts and other Pie Chart Tricks.

But how about a more dramatic evolution of the pie chart? How about a square pie chart? In his post, Pixels are the New Pies, Anil Dash (how’s that for a name for a Dashboard Spy?!), points out a couple of square variations of the pie chart.

Here is one from wired mag that shows a gadget spending trend chart.

Here’s what I mean by a square dashboard. Look at the upper left corner of this image:

And here is a thumbnail of another square pie chart as mentioned in the Anil Dash post:

Updated: Here are some additional examples of square pie charts: Click on the “More” link if you are on the front page of “Dashboards By Example”.

» Read more about this business intelligence dashboard example: The Square Pie Chart ............

In past Dashboard Spy posts, we’ve discussed the growing importance of Microsoft Excel as a serious business intelligence dashboard tool. Because of its ubiquity and role as lingua franca between business units in the enterprise, the recent expansion of Excel’s dashboard capabilities has an importance to us BI dashboarders for years to come. Of particular interest are things like the enhanced conditional formatting and dashboard status icons / indicators.

Add to the mix some cutting edge data visualization tools such as the sparkline charting products (Microcharts 3) from BonaVista Systems and incredibly detailed instructional books such as Excel 2007 Dashboards and Reports for Dummies, and you have the makings of a business power user revolution in visual business intelligence (e.g. dashboards).

The recent announcement by BonaVista Systems of an Excel Dashboard contest brought several thoughts to mind. First, of course, was the anticipation that this event will allow us to see what fellow dashboarders are currently doing with Excel in terms of dashboarding. Second was an interesting thought spurred by the first prize in the contest - an Apple iPhone. They show a small thumbnail of an iPhone mocked up with a Microcharts powered sparkline dashboard. That was neat (and it gave me inspiration to create a larger version of the iphone business dashboard shown below), but what really made me think was the caption “more information per pixel”. I thought that the phrase sums up neatly the sparkline approach to data visualization.

Let’s take a look at the iPhone dashboard I mocked up and then I’ll share some details of the Excel dashboarding competition. It’s still open, so I encourage all Dashboard Spy readers to enter.

Is this the future of Excel dashboards?

Before we look at the details of the Excel Dashboard contest, have a look at some of the Microchart graphics that you can use in your dashboard:

Click on the more link to learn about the excel dashboard competition:

» Read more about this business intelligence dashboard example: The Future of Excel Dashboards ............

“Actual KPIs and metrics from real business cases! Real operations dashboards - That’s what we want examples of.” says a long-time reader of The Dashboard Spy who reminded me that I’ve gotten away from showing the nitty gritty details of business intelligence dashboards. She said that it’s all well and good that I’ve been pointing out design fundamentals and implementation best practices, but she misses the hard core “let’s see what other dashboard teams are working on” approach of the old Dashboard Spy days.

OK, I get the message. Let’s focus on more actual dashboards. Today we look at how the managers of the Singapore Subway system monitor the operational status of their trains, stations and other assets. How’s that for a specific business area of focus for us dashboard fans?

First, let’s take a quick journey to Singapore for a quick getaway before buckling down to some business intelligence.

The Mass Rapid Transit system (or MRT) of Singapore is currently composed of a total of 64 operating stations that serve a daily ridership of over 1.5 million people. There are plans for a large expansion project. Among rail buffs, the Singapore MRT system is of note in several areas. The stations are famous for being absolutely spotless. There are multiple train lines of the system, with the northeast line being completely underground using driverless trains. The platforms are sealed off from the tracks with safety screen doors to prevent access to the tracks and ensure climate control. The MRT is complemented by the LRT (Light Rail Transit). The LRT is close in spirit to people mover systems found in airports.

OK. Back to BI, metrics, KPIs and dashboard reports! Now let’s take a look at how they monitor their operations.

Thanks to the good graces of a Dashboard Spy located at the headquarters of Elixir Technology in Singapore, we have the following dashboard screenshots of the operations monitoring dashboard project. The dashboards are powered by Elixir Repertoire - a product for Dashboarding, Reporting, and Data ETL and Scheduling.

Here is the Command and Control Dashboard.

Click on the “more” link for more dashboard screenshots from this system as well additional commentary.

» Read more about this business intelligence dashboard example: Subway System Operational Management Dashboard ............

Continuing our examination of cutting-edge business dashboards using RIA (Rich Internet Application) technologies, we now look at the state of the art of Microsoft Silverlight dashboards. Never heard of a Silverlight dashboard? Well, it’s no wonder. By comparison, business intelligence dashboards using Flash, Flex, AJAX and other RIA approaches are commonplace. Working silverlight dashboards, however, are hard to find.

Because of the vast differences between older versions of Silverlight (current version is 2.0), dashboard examples found on the web often no longer work. Additionally, not everyone wants to bother with downloading and installing Microsoft Silverlight.

What exactly is Microsoft Silverlight? Roughly speaking, it’s a competitor to Flash/Flex technologies with some unique advantages and disadvantages. It is highly interactive and can be used to create slick, highly-polished applications with a big wow factor.

Infragistics, the long-time third-party component vendor that Dashboard Spy readers no doubt know, has been working on a set of components for Silverlight. They put together a sample demo application called faceOut that you have to check out. It’s a demo that shows off Silverlight and its application to scorecards and dashboards.

You’ll need Silverlight 2.0 installed to view the faceOut demo. Because not everyone wants to install it (or as often the case in enterprise environments, not allowed to install software), we’ve provided a Dashboard Spy video that gives you a sense of the interaction of the sales dashboard.

Let’s take a look at the video. Be sure to click on the more link to view the rest of this post, as I’ve also found a nice wireframe of the dashboard by the Infragistics designers.

And here is the video I captured of the Infragistics Silverlight dashboard. Click on the image to visit the video.

The above embedded video is in flash format and shows the Infragistics faceOut Silverlight Dashboard demo. If you’d like to download a higher resolution avi file of the silverlight dashboard to watch locally on your machine, use this link: Dashboard Video.

Did you like that catchy Dashboard Spy theme song, by the way? It’s still the only song out there about business intelligence! Now on to some more info on this Silverlight dashboard:

» Read more about this business intelligence dashboard example: Microsoft Silverlight for Dashboards ............

We’ve highlighted some 2008 election dashboards in past posts on Dashboards By Example and have seen some pretty nifty work. Let’s continue that theme and look at an Adobe Flex dashboard coded by a long time Dashboard Spy reader and fellow BI blogger, Doug Marttila from forestandthetrees.com fame.

As you may know, Flex 3, the latest release from Adobe, has an increased number of charting components of interest to Business Dashboarders. For those interested in an insider’s view of programming with Flex 3, visiting Doug’s blog will give you a good sense of using Flex for data visualization. His recent work with a dashboard that tracks the 2008 election (delegate counts in particular) has been noteworthy.

Here’s the information that Doug sent along with his dashboard contribution:

I made this flex dashboard in part to learn Flex Charting Components - which I now think are great. I’m a full time flash/flex developer, so I’m biased. But, I think that Flex is clearly the best choice for dashboard development: fast development, lots of pre-built tools, and a growing open source community adding more libraries (many applicable to dashboards) all the time.

Thanks so much for sharing this great dashboard, Doug!

Here are some screenshots. Of course, so you’ll want to visit the flex dashboard demo itself to get a feel of how the flex components feel. Here’s the link: 2008 Election Flex Dashboard

Tags: 2008 Election Dashboard, Adobe Flex Dashboards, Political Dashboard, Election Campaign tracking dashboard.

The “art of dashboards”? Sounds trite and a stretch, but let the Dashboard Spy explain. We’ve heard it said that art is the expression of ideas, right? That it is a form of communication between people. One in which the artist understands and uses to his or her advantage the sensibilities of the audience to both inform opinion and shape ideas.

Well, that certainly sounds like what we do every day with business intelligence, doesn’t it? Business dashboards have the ability to not only to report metrics and KPIs, but to do so in a manner that shapes opinion, influences action and strikes varying tones of urgency. BI metrics may be cut and dry (and that is a debatable statement), but the communication of the meaning of the metrics is an art.

Business dashboarding is a highly visual medium. One that relies on basic human perceptions and principles of cognition. It is also an information-dense medium, in which the nuances of information presentation are tied closely with the ability of the dashboard designers to competently capture and express the metrics and their meaning. A screen full of icons, red/green/yellow indicators, pie charts, bar graphs, blinking alerts and data tables may only obfuscate the true message when presented wrong. We’ve all seen poorly designed dashboards that assault the business user to the point of numbness.

The reason I’m on this riff on the art of dashboards is because of some very interesting materials that a Dashboards By Example reader shared with me. Want to see some artifacts of a dashboard design team that clearly knows the art of expression through a business dashboard? Thanks to Andres, the solution architect at UberBI, a start-up company that produces business dashboards, we have this look at some wireframes, screenshots and even an interactive demo.

Take a look at this great hand-drawn wireframe:

And here’s an example of a final look and feel of the interface:

Gorgeous work, isn’t it?

We’ll detail some of the project infromation but first, let’s take a look at more project artifacts:

» Read more about this business intelligence dashboard example: The Uber Art of Dashboards ............

Dashboard Spy readers know that I have one particular worry that always keeps me up during a business intelligence dashboard project. What if I built a dashboard and no one cared? I mean that literally. What if the only ones who ever visited the dashboard, or clicked on the data drilldowns, or looked at the charts and graphs were the project sponsor, the programming team, the data analysts, the user interface designers and myself? No business users at all. The business dashboard itself might be a thing of absolute perfection with just the right nuances in the data visualizations, all the best factors in information architecture and usability, stunning graphic design and intuitive navigation, etc, etc. - But so what? In other words, we threw the best damn party in business intelligence reporting and no guests came at all. What a waste of money and talent that would be.

Others have been thinking about similar scenarios as well and trying to solve this challenge in innovative ways. Alan Wille, President and CEO of Serence Inc has been passionate about the idea of where to place business KPIs, dashboards, and reports so that users can’t avoid the message. As reported previously by The Dashboard Spy in the post titled The 3 Rules of Dashboards, Mr. Wille has vigorously promoted the idea of The Rule of Placement. As he likes to explain, the key to user adoption is location, location, location. Mr. Wille is advancing the bold idea that the user’s PC desktop is the right place to put KPIs because that way they are always automatically presented to a user, who may often be too busy to ask for the business metrics.

Allan has kindly submitted a great article on the subject for Dashboard Spy readers entitled “Drive Adoption and Performance from the Desktop: Innate awareness of performance hinges on unavoidable KPI reporting“. You can click on the “more” link below this dashboard screenshot to access the rest of this post for the content, or, if you prefer, click on the link to access the PDF version for printing.

» Read more about this business intelligence dashboard example: The Unavoidable Dashboard - Driving KPI Adoption and Performance Management... ............