My Takeaway From IoT Korea 2018: All About Dashboard
There were the usual large companies like LG, Samsung, SKT and HP Enterprise showcasing their latest enterprise solutions as well as startups showcasing their products. Initially, I was looking forward to see rows of latest consumer electronics, but there were mostly industrial solutions providing AI, Data management, Real-time tracking and reporting from gas leak/incident reporting to energy consumption. Obviously, all the data output were presented as dashboards which increasingly becomes an important selling point for businesses. Dashboard is an important tool for stakeholders to gain quick business intelligence and making informed decisions based on it. The importance of dashboard design should not be undermined as poorly designed dashboards could fail to convey useful information and insights.
Some common mistakes identified:
- Having too many widgets squeezed in one screen, creating visual clutter
- Lack of design principle behind visual layout and content organization
- Unclear on what it tries to communicate or what’s really important
- Inappropriate visualisation to represent the data
- Factors from the above points resulted in longer time to digest cognitively
The need to build an effective dashboard according to best practices for dashboard design will result in business success. This is a comprehensive process that would usually include gathering business requirements, defining KPIs, comparing useful data and creating a data model. The participation of business stakeholders and end-users in co-creation of the dashboard is significant.
Sharing some references for good data visualisation design from the practice of human factors:
