Business Dashboards...Done Creatively!

I kicked off the week with Shreya Arya's presentation and I'm so glad I did. Her ideas and approach to dashboard design kept finding their way back into my head throughout the conference and have influenced my work ever since. The core concept she delved into was creativity, utilizing Divergent and Lateral thinking when designing, and the purpose of a creative dashboarding to build your skills.

See, business dashboards achieve a purpose (or, actionable insight) while creative dashboards tell a story. The thought I now return to whenever I'm working on a project is how to build business dashboards, creatively, so I can bring to bear insight and communicte a memorable story.

Without further ado, here are a few of Shreya's principles of creativity and thoughts on how to skill up to achieve it all - purpose, insight, and story - when building for your clients!

1. Pick a statement chart that takes up 60% of your dashboard

This one blew me away! Check out her portfolio to see it in action and truly understand how impactful a choice this is. As the viewer, I feel the statement chart is a clear, focused way to quickly understand the:

• purpose of the dashboard, and
• dominate insight(s)

Taken together with the other 40% including headers, text/images, and complementary charts...and you'll have your memorable story!

2. Visualize something personal + collect your own data

It may seem obvious, but it's true. If you've been working in data visualization for a while you know the difference when working with data you care about. So, you may as well work on something that is feels personal to you. You never know, if you care enough, the legwork of collecting data may become enjoyable...well, at least insightful as it did for me. And no matter the type of data your client has, learn to treat it like it is as important as your own.

3. Reverse engineer vizzes

If you're trying to gain more experience, sadly that is only done with practice. Just go find someone's work you admire or find interesting and trace their steps.

4. And don't forget, creativity is just intelligence having fun!

To really kick things into gear for your business dashboards, pair Shreya's principles of creativity with Matthew Lee's principles of design from his TC25 presentation - The Art of Crafting a Memorable User Experience