Tag: Data Visualisation

Categories
Data Best Practice Data Visualisation

Prepare to visually impress your audience

It’s a tough break for modern software applications. To be considered a catch they need to have it all: good looks, brains and wealth!

That’s why great dashboards with visually stunning insights, actionable information and rich analytics are a key requirement.

The question is: “How do you transform puzzling data into transparent and meaningful business decisions. Actions that resonate with users?” 

Too much swagger with limited practicality is the classic ‘style over function’ trap.

Effective dashboards require a careful selection of useful data. Striking a balance between being sufficiently actionable and overly cumbersome to view.

RhinoIT are keeping a close eye on the emerging trends for dashboard designs. This is the first in a series of posts where we share our thoughts on the most popular ones. First under the microscope is Asymmetrical Design.

Asymmetrical Design

As the name suggests, this visual design departs from the usual little blocks of content with organised rows and columns. The clever use of inequality produces an ‘infographic’ style. Considered to be more engaging than traditional dashboard design.

A delightful but sparing use of colour with illustrations, produce intelligent dashboards where pertinent facts pop. The main elements really stand out, which is useful for focussing the eye of users in a hurry.

In terms of colour, be mindful of all users and ensure that your product is accessible for the visually impaired. Avoid gradient colours on important information: bar charts, line graphs and KPIs.

Visual cues in the form of icons can help to logically guide users through the dataset.

Analog gauges and 3D visuals are now out of style. Instead, try material and flat designs. Material adds gradient and shadows to create a sense of depth, whereas flat doesn’t use any.

Prepare to visually impress your audience RhinoIT
Created using Yellowfin 9.2.2 canvas dashboard and code mode

Next, we discuss Data Storytelling.

In the meantime, we would love to hear from you. Please leave us a comment or question

Main image designed by Makyzz / www.freepik.com

Categories
Analytics Big Data Business Intelligence Data Best Practice Data Insights Data Science Data Visualisation Digital Transformation Technology

Can’t see the view for the fields?

Can you ever imagine a time without spreadsheets? They don’t appear to be going away anytime soon, and for good reason. Most businesses hold historical data within them, and let’s face it, they are a snap to create. However, in today’s fast-paced world of data consumption via dazzling pretty pics our trusted friend ‘the spreadsheet’ may start to leave us a little flat!

“So how do we evolve past spreadsheets, leverage their content, and start to gain real insight into our data?”

At RhinoIT, we were recently asked this question by one of our customers.

Yes, spreadsheets are convenient and easy. Almost everyone has a spreadsheet system installed on their computer ready to use. Unfortunately, this blessing can also be a curse. If every member of your team has access to the same spreadsheet, it’s likely to result in more than one version of your data existing. Unless you have a ‘Mary Poppins’ stance to document housekeeping, this poses an issue with continuity.

One version may have today’s data, while another version holds all the aesthetically pleasing column and cell updates made yesterday. How do you decide which version to use? Something as simple as a misplaced decimal point, deletion of cell, column or row can have an adverse impact on the integrity of your spreadsheet. Changing a positive value to a negative value or adding a new worksheet can also wreak havoc with your best-laid plans.

“If spreadsheets are here to stay, then how do we work around these issues for the foreseeable future?”
The answer is: Integration.

In the case of our customer, we weren’t suggesting a complex solution, quite the opposite. By merely ingesting the data directly from their spreadsheets into a Business Intelligence tool they were able to satisfy their end user requirements.

The result was an effective dashboard with all the requested data views and visualisations. Data could still be collected within spreadsheet fields but with the added benefit of security, governance and one true source of historic reports.

Have you recently struggled getting to grips with business data? What has your experience been with gaining more insight? We would love to hear from you. Please leave us a comment or question


Main image designed by upklyak / www.freepik.com