When planning a dashboard sometimes the biggest obstacle is just layout. I might be over generalizing here but I suspect most SAS BI Developers do not have an extensive background in art design. When you are working with end users, they may have a difficult time picturing how a final dashboard will appear. While the dashboard is about the data, it’s equally about an attractive layout. It can be amazing measures but if it’s an awkward layout people just will not be as interested in it. Here are tips that you can use to make your layout and dashboard planning easier.
You should spend some time with the users or the data determining what measurements exist (or could). Everything goes faster and easier when the suggested metrics and their related goals are available. You might want to create a list of everything in a spreadsheet (like the one below). At this point, you may not have planned on any particular way to display the data. You just have to know what the candidate measures are.
Everyone usually associates Microsoft Visio with flowcharts, but I like to use it for the first dashboard layout. First you can use it to play around with some layouts to find what might work. All of the indicators from the BI Dashboard are box-shaped even if it’s a round pie chart. Thus Visio makes it easier to see the shapes and plan the space accordingly. It is easier to move boxes around.
For instance, here are some simple layout ideas. [Stephen Few’s Perceptual Edge site has some practical ideas about dashboard design.] Remember 01 area is where people look first – so your most important information goes there. For layouts, you generally want the most important indicators larger while the lesser indicators are smaller. As you review the image below, you can see what is considered the most important elements.
Also this layout information can be created once and then used as you design other dashboards.
From this layout, you can understand how information would flow, where indicators are located, and how everything is related. If the end-user is not familiar with dashboards, this makes the intention immediately clear.
Now that you have some layout ideas together use a screen capture software (i.e. Snagit) to cut and paste images into a sample layout. In the following figure all I did was attempt to layout the Service dashboard shown above. I found images from Google that I could snag and paste into Visio. Again – these are not my final indicators, I’m just trying to make sure that the indicators I pick will work. The downside is that you have to take what you get from the Web – but even with these images we can understand what works and doesn’t work.
I didn’t like my first layout on the left because the gauges did not match and seemed to prominent. Also the images on the right were too repetitive. This exercise is really helps me understand how everything looks on a page. I’m glad I didn’t go to the trouble to create these indicators!
So the After figure has a more pleasing layout. Honestly, I love the color of the map but I think it is competing too much with everything else. Once this is complete, I can share the dashboard images with the end-user. Before I do anything with the actual software or data, I can collect some user feedback.
As I noted above, you can search Google for sample images. However, the SAS documentation has an example of each indicator. I know these will not match yours, but it will help you find ideas that you can share with the users. Here’s the link to the SAS BI Dashboard 4.31 documentation.
I normally follow the same as you have outlined. I go by the requirement document and mark each KPI with a Shadow image i.e. KPI Display and mark it if detail data is required or not.
For example:- If i have to report on group products and the trend of say last 12 months. My Shadow image will be a Pie chart and detail data value will be “Yes”.
For detail data i find WRS to be very effective and user friendly. So, will have the Pie chart and a WRS Link in the portlet with prompts(product) for the link.