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 won't 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; and optimize the power of dashboard technology by pairing it with visual effectiveness.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7746 in Books
• Published on: 2008-06-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 223 pages

From the Publisher
Dashboards have become popular in recent years as uniquely powerful tools for communicating important information at a glance. This book will teach you the visual design skills you need to create dashboards that communicate clearly, rapidly, and compellingly. The greatest display technology in the world won't 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.

About the Author
Stephen Few has over 20 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).

Customer Reviews

More than you think
This book is something different from O'Reilly. Usually, you'd expect one of their books to plumb technical depths in order to supply the most detailed and complete reference tool for the application in question. As such, sometimes the books themselves can become quite difficult to read, and almost impenetrable for newcomers.

I'm glad to report that this book is not like that. Few writes with a casual tone, yet you are consciously aware that he is an expert in his field and he provides information at a steady rate, rather than overwhelming you with information. With intelligent use of figures and well planned chapters, this is a definitive reference tool for those who need to present data in graphical formats. So often when people produce graphs and charts, they end up like the nightmare Powerpoint presentation from Hell. Few gives practical advice on human perception as well as the relationship between information and visualisation that will truly help you to produce meaningful and appreciated dashboards, rather than the complex and downright ugly solutions that the author uses to show the worst examples.

If you are getting into Dashboard design, then this should be your primary purchase. If you produce graphical reports of any kind then this book is definitely worth a read.

Easy to read. Sensible advice.
I'm about half-way through as I write this review but I am already very impressed with this book. Few has an easy-to-read style that's not full of fluff or pompous nonsense, and he provides sensible advise for producing effective designs.

The book begins by defining the term "information dashboard": the definition is suitably broad that you may realise that solutions you've build before would fit in and would therefore have benefited from the design advice given in the book. To make his points about poor design, Few then uses a selection of examples found on the web. Many of these are eye catching and graphically pleasing - but the commentary makes you appreciate the problems each exhibits. In the middle of the book, Few describes accepted scientific theories about human vision, perception and cognition that we should take into account in our designs - and these generally support the arguments that the example dashboards used earlier in the book were poor designs in one way or another. Later in the book (and I have not read these chapters yet), Few provides practical advice that can be applied in dashboard design. I am expecting these to be almost self-evident by the time I get there thanks to the Background Few has provided me with. But I am still looking forward to reading them nonetheless.

This book is in no way biased towards any display technology, user interface technology or programming technology and is therefore applicable whether you are producing a single-user desktop application, a multi-user, multi-screen information wall (as you've seen in pictures of the stock exchange) or even if you are producing printed reports. The advice given is about the design thought process rather than any particular notation so is applicable regardless of the software design methodology you may use.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the topic and would say it's a "must-have" if you are practically involved in the specification, analysis, design and even implementation of Information Dashboards.

Great insights
This is an excellent book and will change the way you look at how data is presented. I have struggled in the past trying to understand reports presented to me because of their poor design. The author offers a good mix of theory and practical examples, giving examples of poorly designed reports, pointing out their deficiencies and suggesting a better way of doing it. Overall it is a quick to read book that provides valuable insight.