I am currently taking the Excel Dashboard course, as well as the PBI course by Mynda. Both are excellent.
But they focus on the components of dashboards, or getting the underlying data laid out properly, as well as some useful do's and don't - no pie charts, 3D is evil incarnate, etc.
What i am looking for is a book that talks about overall dashboard design, especially from a financial/business perspective.
- what are good ideas for sales at a glance dashboards
- financial ratio dashboards
- cash flow dash boards
- KPIs
...etc.
Best way to convey info. I don't want my dashboards to look like Excel/PBI just spewed out a lot of individually good looking charts into a chaotic mess of a dashboard.
Thanks for any opinions and recommendations!
Hi Ed,
I'd look for Stephen Few books:
- Information Dashboard Design: The Effective Visual Communication of Data
- Show Me the Numbers: Designing Tables and Graphs to Enlighten
The thing with designing your dashboard is one dashboard doesn't necessarily suit every scenario. Some businesses have lots of products, others have lots of regions and others have both. Your dashboard should include KPI's specific to your business, or there might be an area of your business you want to focus on. So just because someone says their dashboard is good for 'sales at a glance', doesn't mean it will suit your business.
By all means get ideas from other dashboards, and you can use Google Image search for this as well (with a grain of salt), but don't feel you need to copy everything someone else has done. Remember to tailor it to your needs.
Mynda
Thanks Mynda. In doing more research yesterday I ran across Stephen Few's name in another blog post, so it seems he has high marks. Ordered "Information Dashboard Design" to start with.
Not trying to get a one size fits all solution. My problem is I fully recognize I am an accountant and my knack for aesthetics in designing good looking reports is about as good as my knack to breathe under water, so I want that extra guidance. For me, the data is the easy part.
Glad you got yourself a Stephen Few book. I recommend his books in one of the first tutorials in the Dashboard course. I'm confident you'll find them excellent.
Feel free to run your ideas past me too.
Mynda
