Why Does Your Dashboard Deserve a Makeover?

Within the realm of knowledge visualization, there is a well-known saying {that a} image is price a thousand phrases, and so is information. However what if these thousand phrases may very well be distilled into just a few fastidiously chosen ones to amplify the story your information is aiming to inform?

On the planet of dashboards, the place each pixel is valuable actual property, the hunt to condense the essence of huge datasets right into a single display screen typically leaves us with dense layouts stuffed with nothing however charts and numbers. It is easy to neglect that generally, inserting a splash of wealthy context can rework this advanced mosaic right into a compelling narrative, enhancing not simply the readability however the very understanding of the dashboard for its customers.

The Fundamentals of Markdown: A Fast and Enjoyable Primer

Enter the unassuming hero of our story: markdown. With its easy syntax and highly effective capabilities, markdown is about to show your dashboard from a mere assortment of graphs into a fascinating, informative storybook. Let’s embark on a journey to discover how having enjoyable with markdown in your dashboard can elevate your information storytelling to new heights.

All that is accessible as a Wealthy Textual content widget, which provides you management over the place in your dashboard the content material ought to be displayed.

What are you able to do with this new characteristic?

GoodData at present helps the fundamental markdown syntax, also referred to as CommonMark. Sooner or later, we’ll broaden the supported syntax to present our dashboard builders much more management, however even with this core performance, you’ll be able to introduce just a few vital enhancements to your dashboards.

You may add extra textual content to your dashboards with paragraphs and headings (a number of ranges). This was already accessible in GoodData earlier than the introduction of the Wealthy Textual content widget, however inserting your textual content right into a widget may give you extra flexibility in its placement.

You too can format components of textual content utilizing daring, italic, or underscore. That is an intuitive method to spotlight info that helps customers shortly discover the small print they want. You may even format whole paragraphs utilizing block quotes or code blocks. Code blocks can describe any MAQL question that calculates an vital metric that you just need to talk again to dashboard customers.

One other helpful characteristic is to make use of the horizontal line as a divider. This may be particularly helpful when you may have an extended dashboard or a dashboard that makes use of a extra advanced format.

Final however not least, you need to use markdown syntax to embed photographs, flip textual content into hyperlinks, or embrace lists or bullet factors, providing you with plenty of choices to construction your info in a manner that’s helpful to your general storytelling method.

You may learn the small print about every of the syntax choices within the public documentation.

Remodeling Information into Tales: The Energy of Wealthy Textual content

Now, let us take a look at a sensible instance.

I’ll try to enhance the readability of the next dashboard. Utilizing this dataset, we have constructed some insights trying into what books are normally rated among the many prime 100 books over the previous 40 years. Already at first look, you’ll discover that it is unattainable to derive some key findings with out actually zooming into the small print.

So let’s have a look at what we will do to enhance it.

Step 1: Begin with context

It is good observe to offer visible clues to assist customers perceive the info instantly. We will add the Goodreads emblem along with a brief description all the best way to the highest. With out shedding an excessive amount of area, we will present fast context for the remainder of the dashboard.

Since fundamental markdown language does not enable many formatting choices, I’ve entered two textual content widgets subsequent to one another: one with the emblem and one with a brief description and a hyperlink to the Goodreads website.

Step 2: Spotlight key findings

There are a lot of methods to method this. We might add a textual widget and describe key findings in bullet factors. In my instance, I opted for a special technique. There are plenty of charts on the dashboard, so I needed to interrupt the circulate by fastidiously inserting a visualization representing the important thing findings. With this method, I shouldn’t have to pressure the customers to review the chart to see the highest merchandise shortly.

I used the same method for the “Genres” part, however this time, I additionally included a second widget to explain the findings. I selected this method as a result of the totally different charts supplied totally different outcomes, and I needed to verify the illustration helped not simply visually but in addition with understanding.

Within the case of particular books, the picture of the guide is sort of self-explanatory. Right here, I felt like extra context is required. Particularly since comedian books and fantasy have the same visualization, I felt a short description might assist make clear the context.

Admittedly, this method has some limits with the present implementation. The wealthy textual content widget, in its present kind, does not can help you use dynamic values. This isn’t wanted for this dashboard, which is not prone to obtain new information fairly often. In different real-world use instances, nonetheless, this will not be the case.

With picture URLs saved within the database, changing the values dynamically based mostly on the present execution outcomes would additional scale back the necessity to preserve the wealthy content material whereas nonetheless with the ability to present related info. We are going to absolutely add this selection in future releases.

Step 3: Abstract or helpful info

It is potential that you just need to add some details about your dashboard. I imagine it is best to try this on the finish. In my instance, I needed so as to add details about the dataset, an outline of wealthy textual content options I used for this explicit dashboard, and lastly, a proof for the metric I used for choosing the top-scoring genres, because it features a situation that isn’t communicated anyplace else.

A Wealthy Textual content widget can also be useful right here in order that I can construction all this info in a really concise manner.

Ideas and Tips: Markdown Mastery for Dashboard Wizards

On this part, I wish to point out just a few ideas to make sure your wealthy content material is built-in effectively into your dashboard.

Tip 1: Preserve simplicity and consistency

Including wealthy textual content can introduce extra colours and design components (fonts, photographs, or iconography). It’s best to all the time attempt to align these visible components with the remainder of the dashboard and preserve them to an affordable minimal. You also needs to use photographs sparingly and ensure they don’t overpower the dear info that’s included within the information visualizations. Remember that the aim of wealthy content material is to counterpoint the consumer expertise, to not overpower it.

In case your dashboard is embedded in a guardian software, that is one other design context you need to remember when including wealthy content material to your dashboards.

Tip 2: Optimize picture sizes and codecs

Dashboard efficiency is one other fastidiously maintained consequence. When inserting wealthy content material and visuals, it is vital to maintain this side in thoughts, particularly in case your dashboard is meant for sensible gadgets or distributed to areas with typically poorer community connections.

Tip 3: Much less is extra

If what’s written above will not be clear, you need to use photographs and wealthy textual content formatting solely after they ship the specified worth to the reader. It’s totally straightforward to go overboard, and the result’s the precise reverse of the meant state—a extra chaotic dashboard that makes it harder to discover.

Conclusion: Your Dashboard, Your Story

All in all, the wealthy textual content widget is a good addition to your information storytelling toolbox. Along with theming/styling and responsive design, you’ll be able to construct and construction highly effective dashboards which can be straightforward to learn and fast to scan by way of to get invaluable insights as shortly as potential.

Beneath, you’ll be able to examine the before-and-after states of the pattern dashboard. Whereas I needed to compromise a bit on the actual property, the improved readability and further context for the dashboard readers greater than make up for it.

Markdown, being an simply approachable syntax, affords a simple studying curve whereas offering numerous alternatives for what you’ll be able to obtain with a single widget.

Please additionally word that this text ought to be the primary in a brief sequence describing some new storytelling options we’re introducing to the GoodData Cloud platform to present dashboard builders extra flexibility. In case you are desirous about studying extra, be sure that to comply with our weblog or the GoodData Developer medium channel.

Final however not least, we’d be very completely satisfied to find out about your expertise with this characteristic. Please share your improved dashboard or your classes discovered with the remainder of the group in our Slack channel.