When Dataviz Self-service backfire on readability
Companies are creating more and more dashboards, unfortunately, in this frantic race, quantity inevitably takes priority over quality. A few years later, we find ourselves in debt with dashboards that are difficult to understand and need to be redesigned.
When Dataviz Self-service backfire on readability
Excessive use of self-service data can lead to information overload and decision paralysis, preventing employees from taking action.
The ambition to deploy self-service to all means that the business has to learn new techniques and methods to acquire for lack of time, desire or knowledge gap.
4 ways to improve readability
When coaching Data Analysts or Dashboard Designers, one of the things I come across most often is information overload. The cause of the creation of these enormous dashboards is often a failure to diplomatically say ‘no’ to the demands of the business.
How can this be remedied?
- Hire a Data Product Managers who focus on requirements
- Create a Data Design Process
- Getting the business to understand and adopt Data Visualization and your company's BI tool
Dashboard text is often all the same size, but the way it is prioritized helps to guide the user's eye to the most significant elements.
The most important KPI on the dashboard should be 22 px, while the Last refresh date should be 9 px.
When it comes to fonts, less is more. Don't look for originality, or even for any connection with your branding. Dashboards are first and foremost useful, not stylish.
A sans serif font with different weights will do the job just fine.
I'm particularly interested in these fonts: Roboto, Inter, Rubik, Karla...
A classic mistake is labels that are truncated or rotated vertically. We are sometimes tempted to rotate our texts to save space, but we must always bear in mind what is most important for the user: the readability and intuitiveness of the dashboard.
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