PaulM
Registered: 11/01/09
Posts: 4
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Reply with quote | #1 |
The attached dashboard shows the at risk sectors for the Road Safety Authority. When the report loads it defaults to showing year to date, the user can then use the menu to choose a different end date. As this is targeted to Israeli users, everything is in Hebrew and the date menu is on the right.
The labels on the right are the names for each metric. The underlined labels are drillthroughs that open related reports. Eventually they will all have related reports.
The numbers, going from right to left are: No Greater Than (can't use the word target), Selected Period, Difference of Target and Selected Period, Previous Period.
The line graphs specs are: Black is selected period, gray is previous. The chart always shows a 12 month period. Right now it shows December-November. So the gray December is actually for December 2007.
As Cognos does not yet include bullet graphs I'm using Google charts. The limit line is always two thirds in. The dark gray bar shows the value for the previous year. Any time a metric exceeds the limit a red dot appears next to it.
It took a lot convincing to get the users to agree to "ugly" dashboards, but I think they see the difference. This gives me a little more maneuverability when it comes to designing effective reports. So please feel free to rip this to shreds.
Thanks,
-Paul
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grasshopper
Registered: 01/02/06
Posts: 148
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Reply with quote | #2 |
Sounds like you're leading your users in the right direction! :)
I would maybe try to make the bullet graphs just a little longer (looks like there's probably room for that, without changing your other stuff).
And are all the line charts to the same scale, or is each one individually auto-scaled? If each one is auto-scaled, how will the users know the scale?
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PaulM
Registered: 11/01/09
Posts: 4
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Reply with quote | #3 |
I've designed it to fit exactly onto a laptop screen and onto A4 paper. All the white space squeezes together when viewed with a lower resolution. Taking the screenshot with from my workstation just make it look like there's plenty of room.
The graphs are all auto-scaled. I was thinking that the scale wasn't as important as showing the trending. So for the sake of space and a clean report I decided not to add the axis in.
For example, we can see that there was a very recent peak on the second to bottom graph. The peak is worrying, but we are still below target and have far fewer than the previous year. While the graph immediately above it was trending up for a few months and then nose dived.
Ideally I'd like the users to view this and ask themselves "What's causing that trending", and use the related reports to go into more and more detail.
I've attached the report with the axis added. I personally think it distracts from the chart, but there might be a way to add it in if I play with the font.
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grasshopper
Registered: 01/02/06
Posts: 148
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Reply with quote | #4 |
I agree, the chart looks more cluttered with the numbers on the axes.
But, if you're going to let each line auto-scale, you have to do something.
Otherwise users can't tell a "flat line with a little bump" from a "flat line with a huge bump" ... because they'll both look the same.
I'm not a huge fan of auto-scaling. I prefer to scale my graphs based on a known possible range (maybe determined by the 'target' values), or use %-change for the axes, or something.
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sfew
Moderator
Registered: 12/30/05
Posts: 271
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Reply with quote | #5 |
Paul,
It would help considerably to lighten the dark gray background fill color in the bullet graphs. The black bars are difficult to see against such a dark background. People shouldn't have to strain their eyes to see the data, which will slow them down considerably.
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Stephen Few |
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wd
Registered: 01/23/06
Posts: 70
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Reply with quote | #6 |
Stephen;
good catch! I for one, didn't even see the black bars on top of the dark gray until you mentioned it.
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Bill Droogendyk |
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PaulM
Registered: 11/01/09
Posts: 4
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Reply with quote | #7 |
Thanks for the feedback!
I've lightened the background color of the bullet graph. I've also decided to leave the axis labels on the graph. I've lightened and reduced the font so it's not as obtrusive.
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