Any discussion about designing dashboards should begin with information about constructing well-designed content. The quality of the dashboard layout, and the utilization of technical tips and tricks, do not matter if the content is subpar. In other words, we should consider the worksheets displayed on dashboards and ensure that those worksheets are well-designed. Therefore, our discussion will begin with a consideration of visualization design principles. Regarding these principles, it's tempting to declare a set of rules, such as the following:
- To plot change over time, use a line graph
- To show breakdowns of the whole, use a treemap
- To compare discrete elements, use a bar chart
- To visualize correlations, use a scatter plot
But of course, even a cursory review of this list brings to mind many variations and alternatives! Thus, in the next section...
