In order for dashboards to be widely adopted and effectively used by a business, users need to feel comfortable using and understanding the insights they provide. See how I approach designing for user-friendliness in dashboards, and leave with some simple and easily applicable tricks that you can use in your dashboards. As an added bonus - learn about some of the latest data projects I've been up to in my free time.
2. Who am I?
Been using Tableau for ~4 years
Data @ Spotify
Tableau Public public.tableau.com/profile/datavizard
Iron Viz
@j_olsufka
3. • ~180 Desktop users
• ~3000 views per day
• ~800 active users in the last 3 months
• No dedicated ‘CoE’, we have passionate Tableau Users across the organization who maintain and
manage our Server and Tableau community
• Creating Ad Hoc reports
• Data exploration tool
• Internal Dashboards
• many using Tableau
• others that are custom built
• Data Style Guides
TABLEAU USAGE @ SPOTIFY
6. COMMON REASONS DASHBOARDS
AREN’T WIDELY ADOPTED
• Tough to find
• Data isn’t up to date
• Dashboards are broken
• Not useful to business users
• Not user friendly
14. RATIOS
- In 2018, Sales per Customer decreased by 28% compared to 2017 -
Why did SPC decrease?
A) Sales decreased, while customers remained steady
B) Sales increased, but customers increased at an even faster rate
C) Sales stayed steady, while customers increased
15. RATIOS
- In 2018, Sales per Customer decreased by 28% compared to 2017 -
Why did SPC decrease?
A) Sales decreased, while customers remained steady
B) Sales increased, but customers increased at an even faster rate
C) Sales stayed steady, while customers increased
D) We need more context
22. 1) User instructions and click icon
2) Filter navigation details
3) Highlight bars as any color
4) Use a parameter to filter & highlight at the same time
24. DASHBOARD TEMPLATES
• Give a unified design and professional feel to your reporting
• Creates a sense of familiarity with users
• Provides common functionality across dashboards
26. DASHBOARD TEMPLATES
Header
• Company or team logo
• Well organized filters
• Show Apply Button
• Only relevant values
• Hide Show ‘All’ if only to be used for single choices
28. DASHBOARD TEMPLATES
Footer
• Icon for informative text within tooltip
• Contact button with mailto: URL action
• Hyperlinks
• Data up to date as of
29. A FEW MORE THOUGHTS…
• Utilize whitespace (padding in Tableau)
• Stick to simple visualizations (there’s a reason they are the classics)
• Use color smartly
• Don’t have the same color mean two different things
• Use color to spotlight/draw attention
30. TABLEAU PET PEEVES…
• Cover sheets not meant to be clicked with blanks
• Pay attention to what happens to sheets when filtered
vs.
What im going to be talking about
Decided to make a presentation around common pieces of feedback I give over and over while critiqueing
Dashboards
Mostly Focus on the concepts rather than technical aspects
Dashboard is on tableau public and is downloadable
Embeded solutions can be useful for this – some sort of dashboard landing page
Missed the mark on creating something that will be actionable.
Users don’t understand how to get to the answers they are looking for… so they’re like.. Just give me the data and I’ll do it in excel! Don’t need your dashboard
Sparklines are a good example of the importance of adding context!
Sparklines are a good example of the importance of adding context!
ALL of this information is important.. Just providing users with one aspect of the CONTEXT may not be enough.. Some might be more important than others, highlight/show what is important… have the other pieces be AVAILABLE (secondary or in tooltips)
ALL of this information is important.. Just providing users with one aspect of the CONTEXT may not be enough.. Some might be more important than others, highlight/show what is important… have the other pieces be AVAILABLE (secondary or in tooltips)
ALL of this information is important.. Just providing users with one aspect of the CONTEXT may not be enough.. Some might be more important than others, highlight/show what is important… have the other pieces be AVAILABLE (secondary or in tooltips)
Filtered to Central Region and Consumer Segment
To fully understand this – you need to see how BOTH the numerator and denominator are changing
If ratio is going up… numerator is increasing faster than the denom
num is steady.. Denom is decreasing
Denom is decreasing faster than num
Filtered to Central Region and Consumer Segment
To fully understand this – you need to see how BOTH the numerator and denominator are changing
If ratio is going up… numerator is increasing faster than the denom
num is steady.. Denom is decreasing
Denom is decreasing faster than num
Filtered to Central Region and Consumer Segment
To fully understand this – you need to see how BOTH the numerator and denominator are changing
If ratio is going up… numerator is increasing faster than the denom
num is steady.. Denom is decreasing
Denom is decreasing faster than num
Filtered to Central Region and Consumer Segment
To fully understand this – you need to see how BOTH the numerator and denominator are changing
If ratio is going up… numerator is increasing faster than the denom
num is steady.. Denom is decreasing
Denom is decreasing faster than num
This section filters the rest of the dashboard
This section filters the rest of the dashboard
This section filters the rest of the dashboard
This section filters the rest of the dashboard
Filtered to Central Region and Consumer Segment
To fully understand this – you need to see how BOTH the numerator and denominator are changing
If ratio is going up… numerator is increasing faster than the denom
num is steady.. Denom is decreasing
Denom is decreasing faster than num
Filtered to Central Region and Consumer Segment
To fully understand this – you need to see how BOTH the numerator and denominator are changing
If ratio is going up… numerator is increasing faster than the denom
num is steady.. Denom is decreasing
Denom is decreasing faster than num
Filtered to Central Region and Consumer Segment
To fully understand this – you need to see how BOTH the numerator and denominator are changing
If ratio is going up… numerator is increasing faster than the denom
num is steady.. Denom is decreasing
Denom is decreasing faster than num
Filtered to Central Region and Consumer Segment
To fully understand this – you need to see how BOTH the numerator and denominator are changing
If ratio is going up… numerator is increasing faster than the denom
num is steady.. Denom is decreasing
Denom is decreasing faster than num
Filtered to Central Region and Consumer Segment
To fully understand this – you need to see how BOTH the numerator and denominator are changing
If ratio is going up… numerator is increasing faster than the denom
num is steady.. Denom is decreasing
Denom is decreasing faster than num
Filtered to Central Region and Consumer Segment
To fully understand this – you need to see how BOTH the numerator and denominator are changing
If ratio is going up… numerator is increasing faster than the denom
num is steady.. Denom is decreasing
Denom is decreasing faster than num
Filtered to Central Region and Consumer Segment
To fully understand this – you need to see how BOTH the numerator and denominator are changing
If ratio is going up… numerator is increasing faster than the denom
num is steady.. Denom is decreasing
Denom is decreasing faster than num
Filtered to Central Region and Consumer Segment
To fully understand this – you need to see how BOTH the numerator and denominator are changing
If ratio is going up… numerator is increasing faster than the denom
num is steady.. Denom is decreasing
Denom is decreasing faster than num
Filtered to Central Region and Consumer Segment
To fully understand this – you need to see how BOTH the numerator and denominator are changing
If ratio is going up… numerator is increasing faster than the denom
num is steady.. Denom is decreasing
Denom is decreasing faster than num