Plan for security.
Given the type of information that is being displayed, security will play a
big role in the development and design of the site. There will be two
aspects of security you will need to confront: who gets to see what; and how
is the site protected. Personalization will allow you to control who sees
what (see above), but controlling access to the site also needs to be
considered.
The best is to take advantage of a current Single Sign On (SSO) solution,
if one has been developed, or use the network login, if that is possible.
Otherwise, one is faced with having to generate a new set of user names and
passwords for users to memorize. Given that most of these users are pressed
for time and already overwhelmed with systems that are supposed to help
them, a new set of user names and passwords can severely hamper the success
of a new dashboard.
Balancing security concerns and ease of access concerns may confront you
with some tough decisions. Try and resolve these issues as soon as possible
in the project.
Understanding the technology
A large part of ensuring the success of a dashboard project will be getting
the technology right. As an IA, you will probably not be expected to manage
this part of the project, but it will be critical that you understand the
possibilities and limitations of technology. The following are some things
to keep in mind.
Business intelligence
Business Intelligence (BI) is an area of technology that is concerned with
gathering and analyzing financial and operational information. Most likely,
the systems from which data will need to be extracted are BI systems. It is
also likely that there will be other BI projects with which the project team
will have to coordinate. These projects are normally managed through the
technology department.
There are many companies that provide systems and software for the BI
space, and they all offer a variety of features. Some of the players
currently develop systems to manage business information, such as
SAP, PeopleSoft, and Siebel. Others develop data
warehouses and analytic tools such as data-mining tools. Some of the players
here are Oracle, Hyperion, Cognos, and Business Objects. This is by no means
a complete list, and each vendor offers a different set of capabilities.
Most have some sort of dashboard offering that is tied into their own
system.
However, the information needed to create an effective dashboard rarely
lives in just one system or database. Most organizations use a variety of
these systems and may even have a few home-grown solutions as well,
including Excel spreadsheets. On a recent project, the client captured much
of their financial information in Hyperion Essbase, operational information
in SAP, and sales information in Siebel.
Moreover, many of these systems are not known for their ease of use.
Often they present too much—or too little—data, and sometimes they are not
customizable by the user. The graphs themselves may be confusing.
Real-time data
At some point you will have to define what you mean by real-time data. Very
rarely will this mean instantaneous data. Often, data is exported out of one
system and into another on a daily or weekly basis. Financial figures are
revised often, and sometimes only reported on a weekly basis. Sometimes
there is data manipulation that needs to occur to bring the data into the
right format. Almost always, companies are tinkering with their data systems
in an attempt to improve or consolidate them. All of this will have an
effect on the accessibility of data, and how current it will be when it is
abstracted.
Understanding exactly what information the executive or manager needs,
and why they need it, will help you make a decision on how current the data
needs to be on the dashboard. Sometimes data that is a little older may even
be better, since the executive or manager will have more faith in its
reliability.
Reporting software
Before designing functionality for the dashboard, it is best to understand
which charting software will be used and how it will impact chart and graph
design. Many BI systems will export tables and graphs that can be pulled
into a dashboard. Crystal Reports is a popular charting option, but there
are many other providers of charting software such as JFreeCharts, Big
Charts, and Object Planet’s Easy Charts. All of these charting programs have
benefits and drawbacks, and all of them will place some limitations on chart
and graph design.
Once charting software is chosen, you might perform a test to help
clarify its limitations. Design one chart or graph, and then try to generate
that using the charting software. You may find that you can’t make the font
as small as you would like, or that other design elements cannot be
represented as you intend. It’s better to find this out sooner rather than
later.
Another thing to keep in mind is that not all reporting software
generates charts on the fly. Especially if charting is a part of a BI
system, be sure you understand how often charts are generated, as some BI
charting applications generate charts on a daily basis, rather than on
demand.
“3-D options may look nice, but they add a lot of excess ‘chartjunk’ and
detract from the story you’re trying to tell.”
Information design
You should keep in mind that dashboard projects often come about because of
frustration with existing systems. Often, the current BI systems have not
been stitched together in a meaningful way (there are too many of them, or
they are not integrated), or the systems are less than useful because the
information is presented in a way that is not immediately comprehensible or
useful.
For an information architect (at least for me) this is the most exciting
challenge: Organizing data in a way that is meaningful for the user, as
opposed to reflecting how the systems collect and manage data. It is the
essential Tufte challenge: how to take massive amounts of data and clearly
tell the story inherent within it.
Tables, charts, and graphs
Most KPIs, if not all of them, will be displayed using tables, charts, and
graphs. Most reporting software packages offer the basic graph options—pie
charts, column graphs, bar graphs, and line graphs—and then some. These
should be enough to represent the KPIs you’ve selected for the dashboard.
However, even within these basic types, there are variations you should be
aware of. Review Information Graphics by Robert L. Harris for a
complete exploration of data displays. You should be able to find the
appropriate table, chart, or graph from this book.
When using reporting software, be wary of options that look great, but
don’t tell the story you’d like to communicate. For example, 3-D options may
look nice, but they add a lot of excess “chartjunk” and detract from the
story you’re trying to tell. For the busy executive, quick comprehension
outweighs a pretty picture every time.
Data exploration
There are two important dimensions to data that the executive or manager
must be allowed to explore: time and scope.
The user must be able to compare the data to either the past or the
projected future. Incorporating past data will help give the executive or
manager perspective on current data. Incorporating projections will help the
user see where they are headed if the current state remains unchanged.
Almost every KPI should have some time element
incorporated into it for these reasons.
Scope refers to the ability to drill down into data, or roll up data. For
example, if an executive is experiencing extreme growth for his or her
business unit, they will want to know who or what is responsible. Giving
them the ability to drill down in data based on geography, or sub-group, or
some other variable, will help provide them with answers to their critical
questions.
The ability to navigate along these dimensions will improve the value of
the dashboard immeasurably.
Conclusion
The steps one follows to build an executive dashboard are not too different,
if at all, from the steps one would follow to build a “normal” website (if
there is such a thing). However, the target audience, and the types of
information being presented, place demands on the project which are
different from the average web project. It may also require the Information
Architect to spend more time worrying about technology than he or she is
used to.
But, putting these issues aside, designing an executive dashboard
presents an almost pure data-design challenge-one of the few an IA can find
in the web world. It gives the IA an opportunity to understand specific
questions, and then try to answer those questions using data presented in
tables, charts, and graphs. As an IA who also considers himself an
information designer, this is a wonderful opportunity indeed.