Cogitations

Des Traynor’s Audit of Analytics Dashboards

http://contrast.ie/blog/the-future-of-analytics-products/

Deloitte’s No More Ugly Data White Paper 

Provide users with “situational awareness” - full awareness of all events relevant to a given situation, how those events correlate, and an ability to project the effect those events might have on the situation.

http://www.deloitte.com/view/en_US/us/Industries/US-federal-government/federal-focus/analytics/a9d5a5cc0c606310VgnVCM1000001a56f00aRCRD.htm

Juice Analytics Guide to Dashboard Design 

Stephen Few, author of Information Dashboard Design, calls structure one of the greatest challenges of dashboard design:

“Dashboard content must be organized in a way that reflects the nature of the information and that supports efficient and meaningful monitoring. Information cannot be placed just anywhere on the dashboard, nor can sections of the display be sized simply to fit the available space. Items that relate to one another should usually be positioned close to one another. Important items should often appear larger, thus more visually prominent, than less important items. Items that ought to be scanned in a particular order ought to be arranged in a manner that supports that sequence of visual attention.” (Pervasive Hurdles to Effective Dashboard Design, Visual Business Intelligence Newsletter, January 2007)

Gradual Reveal
Reveal information as the user expresses interest. In other words, don’t bombard the user with all the information at once. We frequently use levels of increasing detail from (a) key metric to (b) context around the metric to (c) full breakout detail for the metric. Here’s the interface of Datran Media’s Aperture online advertising dashboard that shows this model

http://www.juiceanalytics.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Guide_to_Dashboard_Design.pdf

Fitts Law 

Meaningful actions should consume meaningful space

http://sixrevisions.com/usabilityaccessibility/improving-usability-with-fitts-law/

How to Be Creative - Jonah Lehrer, WSJ 3-12-2012

On having moments of insight: 

In the seconds before insight appears, a brain area called the superior anterior temporal gyrus (aSTG) exhibits a sharp spike in activity. This region, located on the surface of the right hemisphere, excels at drawing together distantly related information, which is precisely what’s needed when working on a hard creative problem. 

On connecting diverse experiences: 

Steve Jobs famously declared that “creativity is just connecting things.”… How can people get better at making these kinds of connections? Mr. Jobs argued that the best inventors seek out “diverse experiences,” collecting lots of dots that they later link together. Instead of developing a narrow specialization, they study, say, calligraphy (as Mr. Jobs famously did) or hang out with friends in different fields. Because they don’t know where the answer will come from, they are willing to look for the answer everywhere.