可视化 (VISUALIZATIONS)

It’s easier than ever to dive into dashboarding, but are you doing it right?

深入仪表板比以往任何时候都容易，但是您这样做正确吗？

Tableau, Power BI, and many other business intelligence tools allow you to visualize data without touching Excel or writing a single line of code.

通过Tableau，Power BI和许多其他商业智能工具，您可以可视化数据，而无需接触Excel或编写一行代码。

While it’s great that more and more people can work with data, we should also remember that presenting it properly is as important as ever. Well-designed dashboards convey relevant information and allow users to make data-driven decisions. But how can you create a well-designed dashboard?

尽管越来越多的人可以使用数据非常棒，但我们也应该记住，正确呈现数据与以往一样重要。 精心设计的仪表板可传达相关信息，并允许用户做出以数据为依据的决策。 但是如何创建设计良好的仪表板？

Let’s go through three overarching questions to bear in mind as you design, create, and deliver a dashboard.

在设计，创建和交付仪表板时，让我们经历三个基本问题。

时间可用性(优先级) (Time Availability (Priority Level))

Asking this question can help you get started:

提出以下问题可以帮助您入门：

How much time does the user have to look at this dashboard?

用户必须看多少时间该仪表板？

It’s simple, but important nonetheless.

这很简单，但仍然很重要。

So why should we care specifically about the time constraint?

那么，为什么我们要特别关注时间限制呢？

Understanding how much time someone has is important, because it can help you understand how people are going to use a dashboard. Even if someone has all the relevant knowledge to understand, filter, and modify a dashboard to answer a business question, it won’t matter if they don’t have the time to do so.

了解某人的时间很重要，因为它可以帮助您了解人们如何使用仪表板。 即使某人掌握了所有相关知识，可以理解，过滤和修改仪表板来回答业务问题，但是他们没有时间这样做也无关紧要。

This doesn’t mean that you should sacrifice quality when creating a dashboard for someone with limited time. However, it could mean that you could, for example, customize the dashboard’s date filters in advance, so that the user can get the answer they need right away. Tailor your dashboard to the time someone has to go through it, and you’ll be well on your way to helping your organization make well-informed decisions.

这并不意味着在为时间有限的人创建仪表板时，您应该牺牲质量。 但是，这可能意味着您可以例如预先自定义仪表板的日期过滤器，以便用户立即获得所需的答案。 为仪表板量身定制某个人必须经过的时间，这样您就可以很好地帮助组织做出明智的决策。

In most cases, you should build your dashboard to be as specific or general as what your user explicitly wants. However, there may be times when you understand the data more so than the user. Because of this, you may believe that to truly make a data-driven decision, you have to include more data, even if the user doesn’t have the time to go through it. This may be when a conversation between you and the user is necessary, so that you can emphasize that they need to prioritize this problem a bit more.

在大多数情况下，应将仪表板构建为与用户明确想要的特定或通用。 但是，有时候您比用户更了解数据。 因此，您可能会相信，即使用户没有时间进行真正的数据驱动决策，也必须包含更多数据。 这可能是您和用户之间有必要进行对话的时候，以便您可以强调他们需要优先考虑此问题。

目的 (Purpose)

It would be too easy to say that you can generalize how much time someone has based on their position in the organization. For instance, a busy CEO may want to understand why a specific region is underperforming and what the potential solutions are. In this case, she could benefit from a detailed presentation-styled dashboard (like an interactive story on Tableau) to explore the situation, a more common high-level executive style report.

很难说您可以根据某人在组织中的职位来概括他们有多少时间。 例如，忙碌的CEO可能想了解为什么某个特定区域的表现不佳以及潜在的解决方案是什么。 在这种情况下，她可以受益于详细的呈示样式的仪表板(例如Tableau上的交互式故事)来探索情况，这是更常见的高级执行者风格报告。

This brings us to our second question:

这带给我们第二个问题：

What will the dashboard be used for?

仪表板将用于什么用途？

Another way of putting this question is “what decisions will this dashboard help an end-user make?” When you’re looking to help the finance team review quarterly expenses or give an executive an overview of the new product’s digital marketing campaign performance, you’ll want to create a dashboard that gives clear-cut answers. This means that you should include only the visualizations and KPIs that make it easy for the end-user to find the answer. If possible, you should also pre-set filters to show only the relevant data needed for each time they need to use the dashboard.

提出此问题的另一种方式是“ 此仪表板将帮助最终用户做出哪些决定？” 当您希望帮助财务团队审查季度费用或向执行人员提供新产品的数字营销活动绩效的概述时，您将需要创建一个仪表板以提供明确的答案。 这意味着您应该只包含可视化和KPI，以便最终用户轻松找到答案。 如果可能，您还应该预先设置过滤器，以仅显示每次使用仪表板时所需的相关数据。

In contrast, if you’ve created a market research report and need to help your manager make a decision about which new region to expand to, you’ll want to take a more exploratory design for your dashboard. Think as if you’re creating a dashboard that’s a condensed and interactive representation of all your Googling. You should allow the end-user to filter and see results for different scenarios in the dashboard, and have the different graphs and tables update dynamically with every filter.

相反，如果您已经创建了一份市场研究报告，并且需要帮助您的经理来决定将扩展到哪个新区域，那么您将需要对仪表板进行更具探索性的设计。 想想好像您正在创建一个仪表板，该仪表板是所有Googling的简明和交互式表示。 您应该允许最终用户进行过滤，并在仪表板上查看不同方案的结果，并让每个过滤器动态更新不同的图形和表格。

初始接待 (Initial Reception)

The next step is to make sure people actually use the dashboard you create. A final question to ask is this:

下一步是确保人们实际使用您创建的仪表板。 最后要问的问题是：

What can I do to make sure this dashboard makes a good first impression?

如何确保该仪表板给人留下良好的第一印象 ？

Especially when you’re creating a dashboard to solve a problem that has already has a solution, you need to make sure your new solution is received well. It might not matter if you include new visualizations or a more complete set of data if the end-users perceive that the dashboard is difficult to use.

尤其是在创建仪表板以解决已经有解决方案的问题时，需要确保新解决方案得到良好的接受。 如果最终用户认为仪表板难以使用，则包含新的可视化效果还是包含更完整的数据集可能并不重要。

This means that you need to consider how you interact with the end-users prior to delivering the finished dashboard. While you’ll definitely have some form of communication to understand what they want, it may be worth showing your first draft of a dashboard to get some immediate feedback about what’s working and what’s not. You could keep doing this until delivering a final product, as long as you make sure that you’re not unnecessarily bombarding the end-users with questions.

这意味着在交付完成的仪表板之前，您需要考虑如何与最终用户进行交互。 虽然您肯定会通过某种形式的沟通来了解他们的需求，但也许值得展示您的仪表板初稿，以获取有关工作原理和无效指标的即时反馈。 只要确保您不会不必要地向最终用户提出问题，您就可以继续这样做，直到交付最终产品为止。

Finally, when it comes to delivering the dashboard, it may be ok to just send an email with the link to the final version. However, depending on how much you spoke to the end-users beforehand, it might also be worth taking the time to give an overview-type presentation on the dashboard’s functionality and scope. Even a one-page write-up of the data sources you used and some basics on how to filter and interact with the dashboard might be helpful, depending on who your end-user is.

最后，在交付仪表板时，可以只发送带有最终版本链接的电子邮件。 但是，根据您事先与最终用户交谈的程度，可能还需要花一些时间在仪表板的功能和范围上进行概述式的介绍。 取决于最终用户是谁，甚至对您使用的数据源进行一页书面介绍，以及有关如何过滤和与仪表板交互的一些基础知识也可能会有所帮助。

Remember that when you’re creating a new solution for people that already have something to work with, it’s not enough for your dashboard to deliver the same value as the old solution. If it does, what would be the point in the end-user switching over? Because of this, after you design and create a dynamic and easy-to-understand dashboard, make sure you communicate exactly why it’s better than the current method being used.

请记住，当您为已经有工作经验的人们创建新的解决方案时， 仪表板无法提供与旧解决方案相同的价值 。 如果可以，最终用户切换的意义何在？ 因此，在设计和创建动态且易于理解的仪表板之后，请确保准确说明为什么它比当前使用的方法更好。

And that’s it!

就是这样！

Again, here are the three things to remember:

同样，这是要记住的三件事：

1. How much time does the user have to look at this dashboard?

   用户必须看多少时间该仪表板？

2. What will the dashboard be used for?

   仪表板将用于什么？

3. What can I do to make sure this dashboard makes a good first impression?

   我该怎么做才能确保该仪表板给人留下良好的第一印象 ？

Be sure to keep these questions in mind, because nothing is worse than spending a week creating what you think is the perfect dashboard, only to have it ignored after you’ve delivered it. Remember that all these questions are geared towards understanding the motives and attitudes of the end-user, because that is the most important person you need to account for when designing a dashboard.

请务必牢记这些问题，因为没有什么比花一个星期的时间来创建自己认为完美的仪表板更糟糕的了，只是在交付后才忽略它。 请记住，所有这些问题都旨在了解最终用户的动机和态度，因为在设计仪表板时，这是您需要考虑的最重要的人。

Happy dashboarding!

快乐的仪表板！