Dashboard
Design and Development
IT 7113 Data Visualization
http://idi.kennesaw.edu/it7113/
J.G. Zheng
Spring 2021
Overview
• Elements of dashboard design
• Dashboard design principles and
overarching guidelines
• Dashboard design patterns and best
practices. We will focus on the following
areas:
– Layout (separate lecture notes in this module)
– Interactivity (as part of module 9)
• Prototyping and wireframing
How to Develop Dashboards?
1. Structural aspect (the focus of this lecture notes)
– What are the major elements or tasks in dashboard
development and how they are related?
– Requirements, data, visual, UI, software, tools
2. Procedural/engineering aspect
– What are the steps in development? What are the
activities and how they are sequenced?
– How to manage development projects?
• Overall, the development knowledge is summarized
in a set of principles, patterns, best practices, and
tools.
This is a broad question that can be thought from two
aspects of development.
Elements of Dashboard Design
1. Goals and objectives
– Setting the context, goals and objectives
2. Data/information design
– Selection of data and metrics
3. Visualization design
– Selection of data presentation/visualization forms and styles
4. UI design
– How objects are arranged on the screen for utility and usability
5.
Interaction design
– Interactions and actions that supports exploration and analytical
behaviors
6. Supporting features (non-functional) design
– Print, export, share, etc.
1. Goals and Objectives
• Goals and objectives are the starting point of
dashboard development. It is critical to design an
effective dashboard.
– A goal is higher level and can usually express in one or
two sentences.
– Objectives are more detailed and directly support the
goal. They are usually associated with key questions
needed to be answered.
– The definition of goals impact the following designs on
data, visual, and UI.
– Prioritize objectives based on the goal.
• An example on the right
• Mostly, this is based requirement ana