Designing Data Products - Data Fluency: Empowering Your Organization with Effective Data Communication - page 231

DASHBOARD ALERTS CHECkLIST
By Zach Gemignani
The tendency with reporting, and information dashboard design in particular,
is to cram as much information on the page as possible. It is a problem that
Avinash describes with typical candor:
This [is] one of the core reasons why most dashboards are “crappy,” i.e., they
are data pukes that provide little in terms of context and even less in terms of
actionable value.
In the past, we have offered tools to make data presentation as clear as pos-
sible (chart chooser and Excel chart cleaner). Sometimes, clean isn't enough;
a more dramatic approach is needed.
One alternative is to shift the focus from the full data to changes in the most
critical data points. By pulling out the important exceptions, you can make it
easier for your audience to digest what matters and take action.
Stephen Few says in his topic Information Dashboard Design (O'Reilly Media,
2006):
The best way to condense a broad spectrum of information to fit onto a dash-
board is in the form of summaries and exceptions . . . given the purpose of a
dashboard to help people monitor what's going on, much of the information
it presents is necessary only when something unusual is happening; something
that falls outside the realm of normality, into the realm of problems and oppor-
tunities. Why make someone wade through hundreds of values when only one
or two require attention? We call these critical values exceptions.
Alerts are one mechanism to turn the focus to the exceptions, outliers, and
data highlights. Whether embedded in the dashboard or presented separately,
alerts can be the extra layer of abstraction that make a dashboard useful.
Unfortunately, they are hard to get right. I've arrived at four C's for effective
alerts— context , cogency , communication , and control . Here's a checklist to
consider as you build alerts into a dashboard or report: