Database Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 13-30. Creating a new Highlight Action to trigger upon hover and resulting Dashboard be-
havior
We've seen how Quick Filters, Parameters, Sheets, and even Legends can be put to good use
on a Dashboard to create an intuitive and richly interactive data discovery experience. The
next step often takes the most time: the fit-and-finish.
Step 6: Formatting
The Dashboard is very useful and functional as is, and often we will need to stop there and
skip to the delivery phase. This may be due to time pressures, or because details like fonts
and line weights simply don't matter to our audience.
However, many times the difference between a dashboard that accepts all of the defaults and
a fully formatted and “pixel perfect” one is the difference between being ignored and achiev-
ing your objective. Data journalists understand this. As humans, we appreciate good design.
A number of the default formats have already been changed. Sheet borders have been re-
moved, grid lines have been taken away, the font has been changed to Segoe UI, and the font
colors have been softened. We can edit all of these parameters by either double-clicking and
editing the rich text editor, or clicking in the down arrow and selecting
Format
.
Compare the fully formatted version in
Figure 13-31
with a version of the same Dashboard
that results from accepting all of the defaults shown in
Figure 13-32
.
