The Big Book of Dashboards

The Big Book of Dashboards

by Steve Wexler, Jeffrey Shaffer, Andy Cotgreave
Released April 2017
Publisher(s): Wiley
ISBN: 9781119282716

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Book description

The definitive reference book with real-world solutions you won't find anywhere else

TheBig Book of Dashboards presents a comprehensive reference for those tasked with building or overseeing the development of business dashboards.

Comprising dozens of examples that address different industries and departments (healthcare, transportation, finance, human resources, marketing, customer service, sports, etc.) and different platforms (print, desktop, tablet, smartphone, and conference room display) The Big Book of Dashboards is the only book that matches great dashboards with real-world business scenarios.

By organizing the book based on these scenarios and offering practical and effective visualization examples, The Big Book of Dashboards will be the trusted resource that you open when you need to build an effective business dashboard.

In addition to the scenarios there's an entire section of the book that is devoted to addressing many practical and psychological factors you will encounter in your work. It's great to have theory and evidenced-based research at your disposal, but what will you do when somebody asks you to make your dashboard 'cooler' by adding packed bubbles and donut charts?

The expert authors have a combined 30-plus years of hands-on experience helping people in hundreds of organizations build effective visualizations. They have fought many 'best practices' battles and having endured bring an uncommon empathy to help you, the reader of this book, survive and thrive in the data visualization world.

A well-designed dashboard can point out risks, opportunities, and more; but common challenges and misconceptions can make your dashboard useless at best, and misleading at worst. The Big Book of Dashboards gives you the tools, guidance, and models you need to produce great dashboards that inform, enlighten, and engage.

Table of contents

  1. Acknowledgments
    1. From the three of us
    2. From Steve
    3. From Andy
    4. From Jeff
  2. About the Authors
  3. Introduction
    1. How This Book Is Different
    2. How This Book Is Organized
    3. How to Use This Book
    4. Succeeding in the Real World
    5. What to Do and What Not to Do
    6. What Is a Dashboard?
    7. Final Thought: There Are No Perfect Dashboards
  4. PART I A STRONG FOUNDATION
    1. Chapter 1 Data Visualization: A Primer
      1. Why Do We Visualize Data?
      2. How Do We Visualize Data?
      3. Color
      4. Common Chart Types
      5. When Our Visual Processing System Betrays Us
      6. Every Decision Is a Compromise
      7. Summary
  5. PART II THE SCENARIOS
    1. Chapter 2 Course Metrics Dashboard
      1. Scenario
      2. How People Use the Dashboard
      3. Why This Works
      4. The Traditional Approach and Why You Should Avoid It
      5. Author Commentary
    2. Chapter 3 Comparing Individual Performance with Peers
      1. Scenario
      2. How People Use the Dashboard
      3. Why This Works
      4. Other Considerations
      5. Alternative Approach
      6. Author Commentary
    3. Chapter 4 What-If Analysis: Wage Increase Ramifications
      1. Scenario
      2. Why This Works
      3. Dashboard Designer Commentary
      4. Author Commentary
    4. Chapter 5 Executive Sales Dashboard
      1. Scenario
      2. How People Use the Dashboard
      3. Why This Works
      4. Author Commentary
    5. Chapter 6 Ranking by Now, Comparing with Then
      1. Scenario
      2. How People Use the Dashboard
      3. Why This Works
      4. The Traditional Approach, and Why You Should Avoid It
      5. Other Approaches
      6. Author Commentary
    6. Chapter 7 Are We on Pace to Reach Our Goals?
      1. Scenario
      2. How People Use the Dashboard
      3. Why This Works
      4. Author Commentary
    7. Chapter 8 Multiple Key Performance Metrics
      1. Scenario
      2. How People Use the Dashboard
      3. Why This Works
      4. Alternative Approaches
      5. Author Commentary
    8. Chapter 9 Power Plant Operations Monitoring
      1. Scenario
      2. How People Use the Dashboard
      3. Why This Works
      4. Author Commentary
    9. Chapter 10 Showing Year-to-Date and Year-over-Year at the Same Time
      1. Scenario
      2. How People Use the Dashboard
      3. Why This Works
      4. The Traditional Approach, and Why You Should Avoid It
      5. Dashboard Designer Commentary
      6. Author Commentary
    10. Chapter 11 Premier League Player Performance Metrics
      1. Scenario
      2. How People Use the Dashboard
      3. Why This Works
      4. Author Commentary
    11. Chapter 12 RBS 6 Nations Championship Match Performance Analysis
      1. Scenario
      2. How People Use the Dashboard
      3. Why This Works
      4. Author Commentary
    12. Chapter 13 Web Analytics
      1. Scenario
      2. How People Use the Dashboard
      3. Why This Works
      4. Author Commentary
    13. Chapter 14 Patient History Analysis of Recent Hospital Admissions
      1. Scenario
      2. How People Use the Dashboard
      3. Why This Works
      4. Dashboard Designer Commentary
      5. Author Commentary
    14. Chapter 15 Hospitality Dashboard for Hotel Management
      1. Scenario
      2. How People Use the Dashboard
      3. Why This Works
      4. Author Commentary
    15. Chapter 16 Sentiment Analysis: Showing Overall Distribution
      1. Scenario
      2. How People Use the Dashboard
      3. Why This Works
      4. Other Approaches
      5. Author Commentary
    16. Chapter 17 Showing Sentiment with Net Promoter Score
      1. Scenario
      2. How People Use the Dashboard
      3. Why This Works
      4. Avoiding the Traditional Approach to NPS
      5. More Thoughts on Visualizing Sentiment
      6. Author Commentary
    17. Chapter 18 Server Process Monitoring
      1. Scenario
      2. How People Use the Dashboard
      3. Why This Works
      4. Author Commentary
    18. Chapter 19 Big Mac Index
      1. Scenario
      2. How People Use the Dashboard
      3. Why This Works
      4. Author Commentary
    19. Chapter 20 Complaints Dashboard
      1. Scenario
      2. How People Use the Dashboard
      3. Why This Works
      4. Other Approaches
      5. Author Commentary
    20. Chapter 21 Hospital Operating Room Utilization
      1. Scenario
      2. How People Use the Dashboard
      3. Why This Works
      4. Author Commentary
    21. Chapter 22 Showing Rank and Magnitude
      1. Scenario
      2. How People Use the Dashboard
      3. Why This Works
      4. Another Approach: A Bump Chart
      5. Author Commentary
    22. Chapter 23 Measuring Claims across Multiple Measures and Dimensions
      1. Scenario
      2. How People Use the Dashboard
      3. Why This Works
      4. Author Commentary
    23. Chapter 24 Showing Churn or Turnover
      1. Scenario
      2. How People Use the Dashboard
      3. Why This Works
      4. Other Use Cases and Approaches
      5. Author Commentary
    24. Chapter 25 Showing Actual versus Potential Utilization
      1. Scenario
      2. How People Use the Dashboard
      3. Why This Works
      4. Author Commentary
    25. Chapter 26 Health Care Provider Productivity Monitoring
      1. Scenario
      2. How People Use the Dashboard
      3. Why This Works
      4. Author Commentary
    26. Chapter 27 Telecom Operator Executive Dashboard
      1. Scenario
      2. How People Use the Dashboard
      3. Why This Works
      4. Author Commentary
    27. Chapter 28 Economy at a Glance
      1. Scenario
      2. How People Use the Dashboard
      3. Why This Works
      4. Author Commentary
    28. Chapter 29 Call Center
      1. Scenario
      2. How People Use the Dashboard
      3. Why This Works
      4. Author Commentary
  6. PART III SUCCEEDING IN THE REAL WORLD
    1. Chapter 30 Want to Engage People? Make Your Dashboards Personal
      1. Overview
      2. Personalized Dashboards
      3. Make the Demographics Dashboard Personal
      4. But What If You Still Want to Make Something Beautiful?
      5. Conclusion
    2. Chapter 31 Visualizing Time
      1. Introduction
      2. How Much Time Do You Want to See?
      3. How Does Today Compare with the Start of a Time Period?
      4. Are There Cyclical Patterns in My Data?
      5. How Can I Look Up Trends Across Two Time Dimensions?
      6. How Can I Look at Rank, Not Value, Over Time?
      7. How Can I Compare Growth Rates of Things That Happen at Different Times?
      8. How Can I Show the Duration of Events?
      9. How Can I Focus on Bottlenecks in a Process?
      10. Which Time Chart Should I Use on My Dashboard?
    3. Chapter 32 Beware the Dead-End Dashboard
      1. 1. Review Your KPIs
      2. 2. Track Usage with Data
      3. 3. Speak to Your Users
      4. 4. Build Starter Dashboards
      5. Summary
    4. Chapter 33 The Allure of Red and Green
      1. Designing Color-Blind-Friendly Visualizations
      2. Conclusion
    5. Chapter 34 The Allure of Pies and Donuts
      1. Background
      2. Conclusion
    6. Chapter 35 Clouds and Bubbles
      1. The Allure of Word Clouds and Bubble Charts
      2. Marist Poll and Views of the 2016 Presidential Election
      3. Conclusion
    7. Chapter 36 A Journey into the Unknown
      1. Keep Asking Questions
      2. The Squiggle of Visual Exploration
  7. Glossary
  8. Bibliography
  9. Index
  10. EULA

Product information

  • Title: The Big Book of Dashboards
  • Author(s): Steve Wexler, Jeffrey Shaffer, Andy Cotgreave
  • Release date: April 2017
  • Publisher(s): Wiley
  • ISBN: 9781119282716