Topic 5/6 - Information Dashboard Design

Even though the lectures are from 2 weeks, i'll combine them as they are the same topic. In this topic, we learnt about the types of dashboards and what makes a good dashboard. Firstly, dashboards are visual representation of data and are supposed to deliver a clear message to the user at a glance. Therefore it is important to understand the power of visual perception. The Gestalt Principles of Visual Perception is important as it is useful in designing a dashboard. The 6 principles are Principle of proximity, closure, similarity continuity, enclosure and connection. This websites shows good examples of the various principles. http://graphicdesign.spokanefalls.edu/tutorials/process/gestaltprinciples/gestaltprinc.htm

To create a good dashboard, we should reduce the non-data pixels by eliminating all unnecessary non-data pixels and de-emphasize and regularize the non-data pixels that remain, and enchance the data pixels by eliminating all unncessary data pixels and highlight the most important data pixels that remain. Non-data pixels would include decorations and borders.

The second part of information dashboard design is basically about choosing the appropriate display media. For example, line graphs are good for showing trends while bar graphs are good for comparision.