Knowledge + Science

9/30/2020

Dashboards Performed Proper: Insurance coverage Dashboard by Ellen Blackburn

My good friend Andy Kriebel has an internet site Data Viz Done Right the place he talks about knowledge visualization finest observe by displaying examples he has discovered on the web. I assumed I might do the same put up specializing in dashboards. Ellen Blackburn not too long ago posted this insurance dashboard. That is very well achieved. The truth is, it incorporates so most of the issues I train in my knowledge visualization courses and workshops and mentioned in The Big Book of Dashboards. So here’s a brief write up discussing a few of these issues.

About Ellen Blackburn – After ending her research in utilized social and organic sciences, Ellen joined the Data Lab’s Knowledge Faculty, the place she at present works as a Consulting Analyst. Along with her day job, Ellen makes use of each Tableau and a long-standing curiosity in design to spotlight necessary matters by compelling knowledge tales.

Dashboard Evaluation

There are variety of issues that stand out to me that make this an awesome dashboard:

Nicely Organized – The dashboard is organized effectively, with the setting menu on the left-hand facet and navigation within the high proper nook.

Designed to a grid – The dashboard isn’t solely organized effectively, however the placement of the weather on the dashboard is designed to a grid. It’s a fundamental 4 quadrant dashboard with BANs throughout the highest. The horizontal and vertical strains present the very clear grid design.

Using BANs – The massive numbers are positioned throughout the highest of the dashboard because the « headline ». This makes it straightforward to see the necessary metrics, scanning proper throughout the highest of the dashboard.

Further context – Along with the BANs, there’s extra context to the numbers, displaying the prior 12 months numbers and an indicator for simple comparability.

The Use of colour – Using colour on this dashboard is terrific. There are two colours displaying good vs. unhealthy, a darkish blue for will increase year-over-year and an orange colour for lower. Using blue and orange is colorblind pleasant, so customers with colour imaginative and prescient deficiency will be capable of see the distinction. As well as, there are icons used as indicators, making it even simpler to identify the will increase vs. the decreases. There’s additionally a lightweight blue spotlight colour used to spotlight the chosen merchandise.

Chart varieties for the assorted comparisons – Using bar charts, diverging bar charts, and stacked bar charts make the comparisons straightforward to see.

Good use of a stacked bar chart – Stacked bar charts which might be stacked with a number of classes could make comparisons very onerous. Nonetheless, on this case, the sunshine blue portion of the bar reveals how a lot the chosen merchandise has out of the highest N.

Tooltip design – The customized tooltip design may be very clear and straightforward to learn. It gives extra knowledge with out muddle.

Font Distinction – The distinction of font is dealt with with nice care. The titles embody all caps in Daring, and whereas there are two totally different font sizes within the title, it really works very effectively. This type continues into the chart titles and BANs. Then a decrease stage font is used for labels and different textual content.

Use of High N dropdown – To keep away from a lot of scrolling on the dashboard, there’s a High N dropdown field. Deciding on High 10 avoids scrolling on the dashboard and creates a really clear structure. If the person must see extra, then altering it to High 20 reveals all of them and provides the scroll on the charts.

The data icon within the high righ-hand nook gives an awesome description and formulation for the acyronyms on the dashboard.

The creator and knowledge supply are listed on the visualization. That is all the time an excellent observe to verify readers know who created the dashboard and the place the info got here from. Whereas this might not be vital if publishing in your Tableau Server on the workplace, it is rather necessary when publishing within the wild.

Iterate. Iterate. Iterate. – It won’t be apparent from trying on the dashboard, however there was an excellent little bit of iteration on this dashboard. Ellen made a lot of little adjustments alongside the best way, and even after I reached out to her, on what I assumed is perhaps a completed dashboard, she was nonetheless making adjustments and tweaks.

Doable Enhancements

After reaching out to Ellen about this dashboard, she made some extra adjustments, so there’s not a lot else I might do. Beneath are some extra issues that is perhaps thought-about.

The bar charts are so clear that it is nearly too clear. There’s a single label on the highest bar and there are not any axis rulers or labels. Due to this fact, the person can be required to make use of the tooltip in an interactive format to see the worth of any bar apart from the highlighted bar, or they must use the one label on the highlighted bar to make an estimate of the opposite bar values (which is scaled as a %).

Nice care was taken within the sorting of the bar charts on the underside. The chosen merchandise kinds to the highest, whereas the remainder of the bars are alphabetical order. This is sensible, given there are totally different ranks primarily based on the three columns, so it will be not possible to type all of them with constant labeling. A future enhancement is perhaps the power to type every of the three columns by rank (and perhaps including the rank to the tooltip).

Stylistically, I usually choose to not use so many divider strains on my dashboards. This dashboard has a really robust grid, so including so many extra divider strains aren’t actually vital. Nonetheless, the alternatives that had been made right here work very well to cut back the impact of those strains. The truth is, I do not actually thoughts them on this dashboard due to the best way they’re achieved. The divider strains are skinny, muted in a lightweight grey and usually are not linked. These design decisions hold the dashboard from trying cluttered or the sensation that every little thing is boxed in.

Total, I actually love this dashboard. I hope this write up is useful and that it highlights this nice work. You probably have any questions be at liberty to electronic mail me at Jeff@DataPlusScience.com. And remember to follow Ellen on Twitter and follow her on Tableau Public.

Jeffrey A. Shaffer

Comply with on Twitter @HighVizAbility