Information Dashboard Design: The Effective Visual Communication...

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 223 pages
• Published by: O'Reilly Media, Inc. January 24, 2006
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0596100167
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0596100162
• Book Dimensions: 9.9 x 8.3 x 0.6 inches
• Weighs: 1.9 pounds

Product Description
Dashboards have become popular in recent years as uniquely powerful tools for communicating important information at a glance. Although dashboards are potentially powerful, this potential is rarely realized. The greatest display technology in the world will not solve this if you fail to use effective visual design. And if a dashboard fails to tell you precisely what you need to know in an instant, you'll never use it, even if it's filled with cute gauges, meters, and traffic lights. Don't let your investment in dashboard technology go to waste.

This book will teach you the visual design skills you need to create dashboards that communicate clearly, rapidly, and compellingly. "Information Dashboard Design" will explain how to:

Avoid the thirteen mistakes common to dashboard design

Provide viewers with the information they need quickly and clearly

Apply what we now know about visual perception to the visual presentation of information

Minimize distractions, cliches, and unnecessary embellishments that create confusion

Organize business information to support meaning and usability

Create an aesthetically pleasing viewing experience

Maintain consistency of design to provide accurate interpretation

Optimize the power of dashboard technology by pairing it with visual effectiveness

Stephen Few has over twenty years of experience as an IT innovator, consultant, and educator. As Principal of the consultancy Perceptual Edge, Stephen focuses on data visualization for analyzing and communicating quantitative business information. He provides consulting and training services, speaks frequently at conferences, and teaches in the MBA program at the University ofCalifornia in Berkeley. He is also the author of "Show Me the Numbers: Designing Tables and Graphs to Enlighten," Visit his website at www.perceptualedge.com.

About The Author
Stephen Few has over twenty years of experience as an innovator, consultant, and educator in the fields of business intelligence (a.k.a. data warehousing and decision support) and information design. Through his company, Perceptual Edge, he focuses on the effective analysis and presentation quantitative business information. Stephen is recognized as a world leader in the field of data visualization. He teaches regularly at conferences such as those presented by The Data Warehousing Institute (TDWI) and DCI, and also in the MBA program at the Haas School of Business at U. C. Berkeley. He is also the author of the book "Show Me the Numbers: Designing Tables and Graphs to Enlighten" (Analytics Press).

Reader Reviews
After reading this book I have the following positive points to make: .. It is very well designed, it is nice to look at it. .. Has some good ideas (but they are not original ones). .. In general, following its advice you will be able to do a better design of dashboards and management information systems screens. If I counted only this I would give it 5 stars, but, I think this book has some negative points. One of the points makes the author inconsistent with his own recommendations throughout the book. The book is about designing dashboards and the major line of thought is: - keep it simple, clean and objective. - Use the tools (graphics and tables) in a rational way. - don't use all the fancy features that software vendors put in their products for they will make your dashboard less effective. But the author when writing it, forgot part of his own teachings and produced a text that is very prolixic, too many words to explain simple concepts and ideas. Lacks objectivity. So, if you want to better understand the use of graphs, take a look at Naomi Robbins, "Creating More Effective Graphs". This book is very objective, simple and fast to read. The second flaw is that in the examples to show how to do a well designed dashboard, the author used two types of graphs that are not available in today's softwares. One type of graph was created by the author while writing this book (bullet graphs) and the other (sparkline) is the creation of Mr.Tufte, which will appear in a future book of his. It would be more useful to see examples with the typical tools available to design a dashboard. So, be prepared for a nice experience with pictures and graphs in a sea of words. It is an excellent book that will help design dashboards and the like. (So far is the best book on this topic). Comments (4) | | (Report this)