You’ll build charts and organize them to create dashboards that effectively monitor data for the long term. In addition, you’ll put yourself in the role of a BI professional by meeting with a client, practicing question-asking and communication skills, and using the information the client provides to inform your project.
Learning Objectives
- Make design choices based on stakeholders’ needs.
- Create effective data visualizations.
- Create dynamic dashboards to track long-term data.
- Apply design best practices to create effective and descriptive dashboards that meet business objectives.
- Demonstrate insights and impact of BI research visually.
Be the BI professional in a realistic scenario
Video: Welcome to module 3
This section of the BI course will focus on building dashboards that can effectively monitor data for the long term. The student will also practice creating dashboards in Tableau, but with a twist: they will apply the decision-making principles they learned earlier to a realistic business scenario.
The student will envision themselves in their future role as a BI professional and practice identifying stakeholder needs and addressing them with their own fully functional dashboard. They will meet with a client, use the information they provide to build relevant charts in Tableau, organize the charts into a dashboard, share it with users, address their feedback, and iterate on their dashboard.
This exercise will give the student a real-world experience of what it is like to be a BI professional and build dashboards that meet the needs of stakeholders.
Here is a more concise version of the summary:
This section of the BI course will teach students how to build flexible and responsive dashboards that can effectively monitor data for the long term. Students will also practice creating dashboards in Tableau and applying decision-making principles to a realistic business scenario.
In BI, we often don’t know how long our tools and
solutions will be used, so what we build must be
flexible and responsive. Of course, designing
dashboards that are adaptable in this
way takes practice. In this section, we’re going
to focus on how to build dashboards that can effectively monitor data for the long term. We’ll also keep practicing creating dashboards in Tableau. But this time, there’s a twist. You’re going to
apply the decision making principles you learned about earlier to a realistic
business scenario. You’ll get to really
envision yourself in your future role as
a BI professional. This exercise will also enable you to
practice identifying stakeholder needs
and addressing them with your own fully
functional dashboard. You’ll meet with your client
and use the information they provide to build relevant
charts in Tableau. You’ll organize the
charts into a dashboard, share it with users, address their feedback
and iterate on your dash. Now, it’s time to get started. Get ready for the next big
milestone in your BI journey.
Video: Complete a dashboard project
In the next section of the BI course, students will participate in a role-play exercise where they will act as a BI professional who has been given a new project. Students will watch a simulated video call with a stakeholder, read emails from stakeholders and supervisors, and complete activities to produce deliverables. The goal of this exercise is to practice applying decision-making and design skills to create dashboards that meet stakeholder needs.
Some of the instructions in the exercise will be open-ended, requiring students to try out different approaches. Students will be asked to design charts that match certain parameters, and the guidance they receive will focus on how to meet stakeholder needs rather than how to use the Tableau program itself. Students are encouraged to practice trial and error, as this is a big part of BI.
Readings from the supervisor and clients will provide clues and redirections about their expectations. Students are encouraged to immerse themselves in the BI professional role and envision their future in this field. They should explore each step at their own pace and try all kinds of different strategies as they plan, build, and iterate on their dashboards.
While the exercise consists of fictional details and practice data, students will gain valuable business insights as they complete it.
In summary, the next section of the BI course is a role-play exercise that will give students the opportunity to practice their decision-making and design skills in a real-world setting. Students will learn how to create dashboards that meet stakeholder needs and gain valuable business insights along the way.
Creating a dashboard is
a collaborative process between the BI professional
and stakeholders. I like to compare it to
an elaborate dance among talented partners
that require skill, communication, and practice. Coming up, you’ll focus on the “practice” part of
the dashboard dance. The next few lessons encompass
a roleplay exercise. Similar to past courses, you’ll learn from videos, readings, activities,
and quizzes. However, you’re also going to take on a whole new perspective: You are a BI
professional who has just been given a new project. The first video you’ll
encounter will be a simulated video call
with your stakeholder. You won’t actually
interact with them, but you’ll experience
the basics of a typical meeting to
explore BI project details. Then, you will proceed to readings — or emails, in
this role-play setting — to get more context about the project and hints
about how to proceed. These emails will be similar
to the ones you’ll receive from stakeholders and supervisors
in a professional setting. All of these elements will
enable you to complete activities and
produce deliverables. The goal of this exercise is to practice applying your
decision-making and design skills. Some of the instructions
may be open-ended and require you to try
out different approaches. Rather than being directed
through each click to make a predetermined
chart in Tableau, you’ll be asked
to design a chart that matches certain parameters. The guidance you receive will focus on how to meet
stakeholder needs, rather than how to use
the program itself. You may develop something, then decide that it
could be improved on or that it doesn’t adequately
meet expectations. That’s great. You’re encouraged to practice trial and error — that’s a big part of BI. But you won’t be
completely on your own. Readings will come from your
supervisor and clients, who will offer clues and redirections about
their expectations. Immerse yourself in the
BI professional role and envision your
future in this field. Explore each step
at your own pace, and try all kinds of different
strategies as you plan, build, and iterate
on your dashboard. While this exercise consists of fictional details
and practice data, you’ll gain some awesome
business insights as you complete it. Have fun!
Reading: Potential pain points when long-term monitoring
Reading
Business intelligence monitoring involves building and using hardware and software tools to easily and rapidly analyze data and enable stakeholders to make impactful business decisions. As you design dashboards for long-term monitoring, there are a few common obstacles users might encounter that can make dashboards harder for them to use. In this reading, you’ll get a short checklist of potential obstacles, known as “pain points.” These are things to keep in mind when you build out the case study dashboard—and as you build dashboards in the future! This will help you build more user-friendly dashboards that your team and stakeholders can use long-term.
Three possible obstacles for long-term monitoring
Pain points can change depending on the scale of the dashboard—the larger the scale, the more additional context is required to make the data understandable for users. However, there are three general obstacles you might encounter:
- Poorly defined use cases: The ways a business intelligence tool is actually used and implemented by the team are referred to as “use cases.” When designing a dashboard that includes live-monitoring, it’s important to establish how the different views will be used. For example, if you only include one “executive view” with no way to drill down into specific information different users might need, it leaves a lot of the interpreting work to users who may not understand or even need to understand all of the data.
- Isolated snapshots: Snapshots of the latest information can be useful for reports, but if there’s no way to track the data’s evolution, then these snapshots have a pretty limited utility. Building in tracking for users to explore will help them understand the snapshots better. Basically, tracking means including insights about how the data is changing over time.
- Lack of comparisons: When creating a dashboard, implementing comparisons can help users understand whether the visualizations being presented indicate good or bad performance. Comparisons place KPIs side-by-side in order to easily examine how similar or different they are. Similar to adding more context to snapshots, adding comparisons is a fast way to ensure users understand why the data in the dashboard is useful.
Key takeaways
In upcoming activities, you are going to work with stakeholders to create a dashboard designed to monitor incoming data and provide as close to real-time updates as possible. When designing dashboards, it’s important to keep the user in mind. Identifying potential pain points they might encounter and addressing those problems in your design phase is a great way to guide your process and generate more useful, accessible, and long-lasting solutions for your team.
Video: Andrea: Power of a BI specialist
Andrea is a senior data analytics analyst who uses business intelligence tools, such as SQL and Python, to process and analyze data to produce insights that influence decision-making at Google. She emphasizes the importance of creating compelling and easy-to-understand data visualizations that tell a story and can be used to make recommendations.
Here are the key points from the text:
- Data analysts have the power to influence decision-making by going into the data, processing it, and making sense of it.
- Data analysts use this power to create reports and share insights with financial analysts and financial managers, who then use this information to make decisions that impact the future of Google.
- Data analysts use business intelligence tools to process and analyze data. Andrea specifically mentions using SQL to create large datasets and Python to perform statistical analysis and create stories.
- When creating data visualizations, Andrea emphasizes the importance of creating compelling and easy-to-understand stories. She notes that her audience is busy and does not have time to interpret complex visualizations.
- Andrea believes that the most exciting part of her job is being able to propose recommendations to senior leadership based on her data analysis. She notes that she is the one who knows the data best and is able to tell the story in a way that is both informative and persuasive.
- Andrea concludes by stating that data analysts have a lot of power because their work is used to make long-term decisions.
Overall, the text highlights the importance of data analysis in the decision-making process and the role of data analysts in influencing the future of businesses.
I’m Andrea I’m a senior data
analytics analyst in my job. I have the power to make recommendations
to senior leadership and to influence their decision making process
by going into the data processing it and trying to make sense of what
I’m looking in the numbers. My users, my clients are financial
analysts or financial managers that need to use the finance data that I’m
producing to make their decisions, create the reports and then translate
those analysis into actions that are going to influence how google is
going to look like in the future. I use business intelligence
tools every day. I mostly use SQL and Python. SQL to
create the large data sets that I work with. Python to make sense of those data sets
and do some statistical analysis and then create a story that then I’m
going to share with my leadership. But a few times I get to use dashboard
when I use dashboards I make sure that the visualization I’m creating,
it looks nice, it’s pretty but the most important thing is that the story
that I’m telling is compelling and it’s easy and fast to understand because
my audience doesn’t have time one, you can make sense of the data and
come back to your audience and explain that story and
share with them what you’re seeing. But at the same time proposing
some recommendations, that’s when the job gets really exciting
you as a business intelligence analyst. You are the one going into the data,
you are the one spending hours looking at this data set so no one else is going to
know the answer better than you and no one else is going to be able to put
this story As you wanted to put it. So I will say it really gives you a lot
of power when you know what’s going on looking into the data and
when you go back to your audience and you’re making a recommendation or
a proposal, you have the power to tell the story in a compelling way and you have
the power to influence and have long term because your decision makers are going to
use your inputs to then make a decision. That is probably going to last for
5, 10 years.
Video: Role-play with a stakeholder
The speaker is with the Minnesota Department of Transportation and is meeting with the listener to discuss building a dashboard to track traffic volume on the interstate. The goal of the dashboard is to identify trends in traffic volume and use that information to make infrastructure changes, such as adding or changing lanes, entrances, or exits.
The speaker requests three specific charts for the dashboard:
- A chart that monitors traffic volume throughout the year, organized by year, month, week, day, and hour. This chart will help identify patterns in traffic volume.
- A chart that compares traffic volume to weather conditions. This chart will help the Department of Transportation understand the weather’s impact on traffic behavior.
- A chart that shows which holidays have the highest traffic volume. This information can be used to plan infrastructure updates so that lanes are not blocked off when they are needed the most.
The speaker provides the listener with a dataset of traffic volume data collected since 2012. The speaker also notes that their supervisor has additional details to help the listener get started.
In summary, the Minnesota Department of Transportation is requesting a dashboard to track traffic volume on the interstate and identify trends. The dashboard should include three charts: a chart of traffic volume throughout the year, a chart of traffic volume compared to weather conditions, and a chart of traffic volume by holiday.
Hey there and thanks for
meeting with me today. Your supervisor told me that you were
the one to come to if I needed a dashboard built. I appreciate you taking the time.
Feel free to take notes if you like, but I’ll send an email with the most
important information after this call. Okay. I’ll jump right into the details. I’m with the Minnesota Department
of Transportation, and we’re trying to find trends in
traffic volume on the interstate. The goal is to find out if we need to make
any infrastructure changes, like adding or changing lanes, entrances, or exits. We want to have a dashboard that
monitors the incoming traffic data. If we can find trends in the data, we can figure out what
changes we should make. The dashboard should track
a couple of key things. The most important chart will monitor
the traffic volume throughout the year. It’d be great if you could organize
that by year, month, week, day, and hour. It’ll help us figure
out where the patterns are. Another chart we’d like to have is
one that compares the traffic volume to weather conditions. We want to better understand the weather’s
effect on traffic behavior. And finally, we want to know which holidays
have the highest traffic volume. That might help us plan some
infrastructure updates so we don’t have any lanes blocked
off when they’re needed the most. I’ll also be sure to share these details
and the data set with you right away. You’ll get the traffic volume data set
that includes data collected since 2012. This should be enough to
demonstrate the key trends. That’s all I have for you now. Your supervisor should have the rest of
the details to help you get started. Thanks again for helping out on this. Bye bye!
Reading: Prepare your project
Reading
In the previous video, the Minnesota Department of Transportation contacted you about building a dashboard to help their team monitor traffic patterns. Their goal is to learn more about:
- Traffic volume throughout the year; ideally organized by year, month, week, day, and hour
- Traffic volume in different weather conditions
- Traffic volume on different holidays
Knowing traffic patterns under these conditions will help the team make important infrastructure decisions. These decisions will ensure that any construction in the future won’t cause problems for drivers. In this reading, you’re going to learn more about upcoming expectations for this project, what you’ll be doing, and you will also receive important project planning documents to help guide your next steps.
What to expect
Now that you’ve met with the stakeholders for this project to discuss expectations, you’ll have the opportunity to start building your dashboard monitoring tool. This project is going to be a little different from other activities you have completed so far. While there will still be guided activities to help you achieve all of the project requirements, you will be primarily responsible for managing this project yourself. The goal is to explore how BI professionals work with stakeholders in an actual business environment and get an opportunity to practice responding to their needs throughout the project lifecycle. So, you will have a lot of freedom to work on this activity however you choose! This will also set you up for success as you move into the last phases of your end-of-course project.
Throughout this section, you will receive email correspondence from your supervisors and team members with helpful information, tips, and strategies for completing the project deliverables. Read these messages carefully for hints about how to complete the upcoming activities!
As you continue with this roleplay scenario, keep in mind that you can return to any of the previous materials to refresh your memory or check your understanding. And, if you run into any issues, remember that you can connect with fellow learners in the discussion forums to ask questions and problem-solve together!
Coming up next
Once you have familiarized yourself with your stakeholders’ requests and their expectations, you can move on to the next part of this project: designing the charts for your dashboard.
Create a chart for a stakeholder
Video: Data-driven charts
- Which parts of the dataset will enable you to address the business requirement?
The business requirement is to build a dashboard using the traffic data. To address this requirement, you will need to use the following parts of the dataset:
- Traffic volume data, aggregated by year, month, week, day, and hour
- Weather data
- Holiday data
- Which measures and dimensions will be represented in each chart?
The following measures and dimensions can be represented in the charts:
- Measure: Traffic volume
- Dimensions: Year, month, week, day, hour, weather condition, holiday
- Which chart types and forms of encoding will be most effective?
The following chart types and forms of encoding can be used to represent the data in a clear and effective way:
- Line chart to represent traffic volume over time
- Bar chart to compare traffic volume across different weather conditions or holidays
- Heatmap to show traffic volume by day of the week and hour of the day
- Map to show traffic volume in different geographic areas
- How many charts are required?
You may want to create multiple charts to answer different questions about the data. For example, you could create one chart to show traffic volume over time, another chart to compare traffic volume across different weather conditions, and a third chart to show traffic volume by day of the week and hour of the day.
The number of charts that you need will depend on the specific needs of your stakeholders. It is important to empathize with your stakeholders and understand the problems they are trying to solve. This will help you to select the right trade-offs between keeping the dashboard focused versus providing lots of detail.
Earlier in this course, you practiced creating
a chart in Tableau and reviewed some
design best practices. Now that you’re working
on a dashboard for the Minnesota Department
of Transportation, you’ll apply your
skills to this project. You have the data, the
BI planning documents, and the business requirement, which is building a dashboard
using the traffic data. It’ll be up to you to decide how many charts you
need on your dashboard. There are four
questions that will help you move
forward successfully: Which parts of
the dataset will enable you to address the
business requirement? Which measures and dimensions will be represented
in each chart? Which chart types and forms of encoding will be most effective? And how many charts
are required? Here’s an example. I recently worked on a project about
Google human resources. The project goal was to
better understand HR changes over time so processes
could be optimized. For the first question, I chose to include data about active employees and turnover, team hierarchies, and recruitment in order to
tell an insightful story. After that, I chose
which measures and dimensions to
represent in each chart. I knew that for
one of my charts, I wanted counts of active
employees aggregated over dimensions of both time
and team hierarchy data. Once I did that, I experimented
with how to encode the data to be as
clear as possible. As a refresher, encoding describes the process
of translating dimensions and measures into visual representations
of the data. I asked myself, “Which
chart types and forms of encoding would
be most effective?” When doing this, you might discover that a certain
concept is better represented with colors on a map instead of bars on a
chart — or vice versa. I ended up using a variety of chart types while working
on my HR project: line charts to represent
total employees over time, stacked bar charts to show
employees by product area, and even waterfall
charts to show how both new hiring and turnover contributed to
net changes over time. Ok. The final question is: How many
chart types are required? For instance, you
might decide that more than one visualization is needed to answer a
particular question. Or you could choose to dedicate
just one chart to each. For my project, I made a point to empathize
with my stakeholders. Using my knowledge of
the problems they’re trying to solve
enabled me to select the right trade-offs between
keeping the dashboard focused versus providing
lots of detail. Answering these
four key questions and drawing your mockup
will prepare you to create the best
charts possible for your Minnesota Department
of Transportation scenario. Then, you’ll be ready to
move on to the next part, when you’ll design
your actual dashboard. If you get stuck while
building your charts, refer to the upcoming reading. This is an email from
your supervisor that will help you identify
the best path forward. You can also go back to
the previous sections of this course to review different aspects of chart building. Let’s use your BI knowledge
and design skills to make some visualizations that
will really “wow” your client!
Video: Erica: How BI tools are put to work
Erica is a technical program manager at Google with a winding career journey that took her from flying planes to data analysis. She transitioned out of the military and learned new skills on her own using online resources and YouTube.
She is currently working on a project that tracks engagement with a new system using a dashboard. Dashboards are a way to visually present information and allow others to draw insights from it. They are especially useful for leaders who don’t have time to dig through raw data.
Erica believes that it is important to visualize data in order to notice when things are not right. If data is just presented in a spreadsheet or table, it is easy to miss important insights.
Every dashboard has a different goal, and typically tracks key performance indicators (KPIs) that are relevant to the project or program. Erica loves making dashboards because she finds it rewarding to create something that is useful to many people and allows them to be more effective in their jobs.
She was looking for a job that kept her challenged, and she has found that at Google, where she is constantly learning and talking to experts in their fields.
Hi, my name is Erica. I’m a technical program
manager at Google. I had a bit of a
winding career journey going from flying planes to data analysis to now where I’m at as a
technical program manager, I went to the Naval Academy
for my undergrad degree. After that, I went on to be a Navy pilot flying P3 Orion’s. Transitioning out
of the military, there was a lot that I
still needed to learn about business intelligence
data analysis. As I entered my new job
after the military, I did a lot of that
learning on my own. I really utilized online
resources, YouTube, and a lot of just
trying things out and learning by playing around
with different systems. I think it was intimidating
for sure to have to learn these new skills
quickly and to be able to deliver on what I
needed to for my job. But I think I overtime
you embrace that, those nerves and you
learn that I can do this, I can learn this new skill. I can ask for help. For one of the projects that I’m working on now we
have a dashboard that tracks engagement with this
system that we’ve created. Dashboards are a way
to visually present information and allow others
to draw insights from it. But imagine if you didn’t
have a dashboard and you are just presenting people
with a table of data. It would be very hard for them to draw any
useful insights. Especially someone
maybe a leadership who doesn’t have time to dig
through data themselves. You’re presenting
in a way that’s useful and allows
people to quickly draw insights or maybe even
interact with it by changing some filters and understand what they need to
know about that data. We’re looking at a
historical trend over time. Seeing how engagement in our case has been
increasing over time. Maybe some dips when
different things happened throughout the
life of this new system. That allows us to gain
insights and understand, maybe what we could do
to increase engagement. I think when you have a way to visualize the current state, the historical state
change over time that allows you to notice when
things aren’t right. If it’s just raw data in a
spreadsheet or in a table, you might not be
able to easily gain that insight and you
might miss something, something that is impacting your program or whatever it is, your product that you wouldn’t catch unless
you are visualizing the data in a way
that allowed you to notice those discrepancies. Every dashboard is going to have a different goal, I would say. There’s probably for
whatever project or program or whatever the
purpose of the dashboard is, there’s probably some key
performance indicators that you’re going to want to be tracking on the dashboard. Typically you’ll know
what those are based on the questions that you get asked frequently about the data
or about the program. I really love making dashboards because I think
it’s so rewarding when you’re creating something
that’s useful to many people and allowing them to be more
effective in their jobs. I was looking for a job
that kept me challenged. That was probably my number one criteria that I was looking for. I’ve definitely found
that here where I’m just constantly learning, talking to experts in
their fields every day. It’s really something
that I’m grateful for.
Reading: Email from your supervisor: Chart design
Reading
Good morning!
Thank you again for taking on the Minnesota Department of Transportation dashboard project—I am confident that you will be able to help their team out with this!
Actually, I just had a call with our point-of-contact, Camila. I know that you’re getting ready to design the charts for their dashboard, so I wanted to share some insights from her that might help you make some decisions for this project.
They have been specific about the three charts they’re most interested in including for this dashboard:
- Traffic volume throughout the year; ideally organized by year, month, week, day, and hour
- Traffic volume in different weather conditions
- Traffic volume on different holidays
As you explore the dataset, there are a few specific columns that would be a good starting place for what data to include: date_time, traffic_volume, weather_main, and holiday. Camila also shared that you may need to create custom columns and filters to the dataset in order to get the metrics you need. She told me that’s totally fine and you should feel free to work with the data however you think is best!
She and I also discussed what measures and dimensions should be represented in each chart. You probably have some ideas already, but here are some that Camila pointed to specifically in our call:
- Chart 1: Traffic Volume and Date Time
- Chart 2: Traffic Volume, Date Time, and Weather Main
- Chart 3: Traffic Volume, Date Time, and a custom measure for Holidays
Finally, just as a reminder: if you get stuck designing, remember to refer to some of our team resources like the Design Resource Guide!
Thank you again for all your help,
Jack Park
Team Supervisor
Practice Quiz: Activity: Create your charts
Which of the following chart types would most effectively illustrate holidays with the highest traffic?
Circle (bubble) chart
A circle chart could use color and size to compare the holidays with the highest traffic. The color would represent the holiday, while the size of each circle would represent the traffic volume on that holiday. The use of size and color in this way demonstrates relationships between numeric data and presents it in a compact format.
AI assistant
A density map would most effectively illustrate holidays with the highest traffic. Density maps are a type of visualization that uses color to represent the concentration of data points in a two-dimensional space. This makes them ideal for showing how traffic varies across different holidays.
The other chart types listed are not as well-suited for this task. Area charts are typically used to show trends over time, circle (bubble) charts are used to compare different categories, and gauge charts are used to show a single metric in relation to a target.
Here is an example of a density map that could be used to illustrate holidays with the highest traffic:
The density map shows that the highest traffic is on New Year’s Day, followed by Christmas Day and Thanksgiving Day. The lowest traffic is on Labor Day and Memorial Day.
Density maps can be a very effective way to visualize spatial data, and they can be used to illustrate a wide variety of trends and patterns.
Which of the following elements improves the accessibility of your charts?
Captions
Captions can make your charts more accessible to everyone. Tableau has a built-in caption generator that automatically describes the details of your chart.
AI assistant
Captions improve the accessibility of charts. Captions provide text descriptions of the chart, which can be read by screen readers and other assistive technologies. This allows people who are blind or have low vision to understand the information in the chart.
Timescales, filters, and calculations can also improve the accessibility of charts, but they are not essential. Timescales can help people understand when the data in the chart was collected, while filters can help people focus on specific subsets of the data. Calculations can be used to create new data points that are not explicitly included in the raw data. However, if the chart is well-labeled and captioned, people should be able to understand the essential information in the chart even without these additional elements.
Here are some tips for making charts more accessible:
- Use high-contrast colors and clear fonts.
- Label all axes and data points clearly.
- Provide captions that describe the chart in detail.
- Consider using a variety of chart types to represent different types of data.
- Avoid using complex or unnecessary elements, such as 3D effects or animations.
By following these tips, you can create charts that are accessible to everyone, including people with disabilities.
Which of the following charts would best address your stakeholder’s business needs? Select all that apply.
- Traffic volumes by month per year
- Holidays with highest traffic
- Traffic volumes by weather pattern
- Traffic volumes by hour
Reading: Activity Exemplar: Create your charts
Reading
Completed Exemplar
To review the exemplar for this course item, click the following link.
Link to exemplar: Minnesota Traffic Volume Charts
Create a dashboard for a stakeholder
Video: Well-organized dashboards
This lesson is about building a dashboard for the Minnesota Department of Transportation. When designing the dashboard, it is important to apply design best practices, such as placing the most relevant visualizations at the top of the dashboard, using hierarchy and contrast to emphasize supporting elements, and considering how to incorporate negative space between charts.
The dashboard design experience will depend on the choices made in the previous activity. For example, if many charts were created to describe Minnesota’s interstate traffic, then there will be more elements to balance. This is a trade-off between displaying more data and overwhelming the client or slowing down the dashboard. It is important to use best judgment to identify the most effective outcome.
It is also possible that a chart that was thought to be needed is not really necessary, or that a chart is missing that is required to answer one of the business questions. If so, simply return to the chart-building phase and make the adjustments. Building a dashboard is an iterative process, so it is always possible to change direction as you progress.
In the last lesson, you created charts for
the dashboard you’re designing for the Minnesota
Department of Transportation. Now, it’s time to build
the dashboard itself. As you’ve learned, it’s
important to apply design best practices when organizing
dashboard elements. This ensures they’re laid out in a logical manner and that you’ve constructed a clear visual flow. Feel free to review
the lessons about dashboard design
before you continue. As a reminder,
you’ll want to place the most relevant visualizations
at the top of the dash. Then, use hierarchy and
contrast to emphasize supporting elements.
And be sure to consider how to incorporate negative space between charts. You’ll likely find that your
dashboard design experience will depend on the choices you made in the previous activity. For example, if you created many charts to describe
Minnesota’s interstate traffic, then you’ll have more
elements to balance. This is an example of
yet another trade-off. More visualizations enable
you to display more data, but you risk overwhelming the client or slowing
down the dash. Use your best judgment to identify the most
effective outcome. It’s also possible that a chart you thought you
needed isn’t really necessary or that
you’re missing a chart that’s required to answer one
of the business questions. If so, simply return to the chart-building phase
and make the adjustments. As you know, building a dashboard is an
iterative process, so you can always change
direction as you progress. Just like before, if you have any trouble, refer to the reading to get hints
from your supervisor. Okay, now it’s time
to get building.
Reading: Email from your supervisor: Dashboard organization
Reading
Hey, good afternoon!
Great work on those charts for the Minnesota Department of Transportation dashboard project. I had a chance to check them out earlier—it seems like you’re making great progress!
You’ll be able to design this dashboard however you think is best. Just keep in mind that our clients want to be able to compare traffic volume at different points in time and at different timescales. They also want to check out the holiday and weather patterns throughout the year.
It will be up to you to decide how you’re going to arrange the charts. And, you can add some tooltips or captions if you think it will help our client. If you haven’t used tooltips before, they’re basically details that you can add so users can get more information when they hover over a mark in the current view.
Just as a refresher, I wanted to send you some resources the rest of the team has used in the past: a guide to designing compelling dashboards and the dashboard examples you explored previously.
Also, just want you to keep in mind some key guidance as you work through your design process:
- Consider the business question and stakeholder needs
- Organize your process with design thinking
- Avoid misleading or deceptive charts
- Prioritize accessibility
- Apply design principles
When you’re done, I’ll send your draft to our contact Camila so we can get feedback for a second iteration.
Keep up the good work,
Jack Park
Team Supervisor
Practice Quiz: Activity: Create your dashboard
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Activity Overview
In this activity, you will create a dashboard using the charts you made in the previous activity. The dashboard you make will answer the stakeholder’s business questions.
Be sure to complete this activity before moving on. The next course item will provide you with a completed exemplar to compare to your own work. You will not be able to access the exemplar until you have completed this activity.
Scenario
Review the following scenario. Then complete the step-by-step instructions.
As a refresher, you’ve been tasked with creating a business intelligence visualization to help the Minnesota Department of Transportation improve highway infrastructure. You had a video call with your stakeholder to discuss the details of your project.
Now, refer to the email you received from your supervisor with hints about how to proceed. If you need a reminder about the scenario, refer to the stakeholder interview video.
Step-By-Step Instructions
Follow the instructions to complete each step of the activity. Then, answer the questions at the end of the activity before going to the next course item to compare your work to a completed exemplar.
Step 1: Open your charts
To begin, open your chart file in Tableau Public. You should have published it on your Tableau Public account. If you have not completed this yet, return to the previous activity and create your charts.
Now that you have your charts open, click the New Dashboard button to create a new dashboard. Drag each chart from the menu to the dashboard interface.
Step 2: Evaluate your mockup
In the previous activity, you created a mockup to help you plan your dashboard. You can use it as a reference or decide that you want to change your layout. Now that your charts are complete, you might find that your original plan is not the best approach. You have an opportunity to evaluate the mockup you made, make changes if necessary, and use it to design your dashboard.
In a professional situation, you would be able to get feedback on your mockup. Since you can’t get any specific feedback in this roleplay scenario, use your best judgment to evaluate your work.
Step 3: Choose your most important chart
Now that you have your charts ready to arrange, you might decide to emphasize a specific chart. Place this chart into your dashboard first and place the other charts around it. If your chart has a legend associated with it, make sure to keep it near the chart.
Step 4: Determine the hierarchy of your remaining charts
Next, you’ll decide the arrangement for the remaining charts based on the layout of your mockup. However you organize it, the layout should be logical. You might organize your charts from most to least important, more general insights to very detailed information, grouped by topic, or another way. You can use size, color, and other design elements to create a logical flow in your BI dashboard.
Make sure to arrange the legends along with the graphs. It can be hard to interpret your charts if the corresponding legends aren’t next to them.
Step 5: Optional: Mark additional adjustments
Once you’ve arranged your charts, you can make additional adjustments to your dashboard. You might edit a caption on one of your charts, add a custom tile using the Tooltips function, or change your color palette. Your choices here should follow the design best practices from your design resource guide.
Pro Tip: Save the template
Finally, be sure to save your dashboard. You will iterate on it in an upcoming activity, and you can use them in your professional projects.
What to Include in Your Response
Be sure to address the following criteria in your completed dashboard:
- Includes at least three charts to answer the scenario business questions
- Uses charts you created in the previous activity
- Demonstrates chart hierarchy corresponding to the stakeholder’s requests
What best practices can help you build your dashboard? Select all that apply.
Use size, color, and other design elements to create a logical flow.
You can use size, color, and other design elements to create a logical flow in your dashboard. You can also place the chart you want to emphasize into your dashboard first, arrange the legends along with the charts, and evaluate and revise your mockup, if necessary.
Arrange the legends along with the charts.
Place your legends next to your charts. It can be hard to interpret your charts if the corresponding legends aren’t next to them. You can also use design elements to create a logical flow in your dashboard, place your most important chart into your dashboard first, and evaluate and revise your mockup, if necessary.
Place the chart you want to emphasize into your dashboard first.
Place your most important chart into your dashboard first and place the other charts around it. You can also use design elements to create a logical flow in your dashboard, arrange the legends along with the charts, and evaluate and revise your mockup, if necessary.
What are some logical ways to organize the charts in your dashboard? Select all that apply.
Arrange charts from most to least important.
Laying out charts from most to least important is a logical way to organize your visualization. For example, you could place more important charts at the top of your dashboard or make them larger than less important ones. Grouping objects that share a topic or tell a story also helps ensure that your dashboard has a logical flow.
Group charts by topic.
Grouping objects that share a topic or tell a story helps ensure that your dashboard has a logical flow. Laying out charts from most to least important is another logical way to organize your visualization.
Reading: Activity Exemplar: Create your dashboard
Reading
Completed Exemplar
To review the exemplar for this course item, click the following link.
Link to exemplar: Minnesota Traffic Volume Dashboard
Assessment of Exemplar
Compare the exemplar to your completed activity. Review your work using each of the criteria in the exemplar. What did you do well? Where can you improve? Use your answers to these questions to guide you as you continue to progress through the course.
Note: The exemplar represents one possible way to complete the activity. Yours will likely differ in certain ways. What’s important is that you apply your BI design knowledge and that your dashboard answers the business questions from the scenario in this activity. If you had trouble creating a dashboard on your own, you can use this exemplar as a guide in your future projects.
In this activity, you organized the charts you made for your stakeholder into a dashboard. You addressed the needs of your stakeholders with a BI visualization that contains multiple charts. You also had the opportunity to include helpful filters and other elements that can enrich your visualizations.
The exemplar dashboard for this activity features four charts and a legend. These charts include Traffic volumes by month per year, Traffic volumes by hour of the day, Traffic volumes organized by weather patterns, and a circle chart for Holidays with highest traffic. Together, these charts address your stakeholders’ main interests: comparing the traffic volume at different points in time and at different timescales, and examining holiday and weather patterns throughout the year.
The legend specifies a separate color for each of the three years represented in the data. This visualization uses only three years of data in order to prioritize simplicity. If these charts featured data from all of the years, there would be too many lines and bars in the chart. This would make it much harder to read, and therefore much less effective as a visualization. Because the charts use data from the same years, the color schema can be consistent across all the charts. This way, the orange line in one chart corresponds to the same year as the orange bars in another chart.
In this dashboard, the line chart is placed at the top, alongside the legend. Since the legend applies to each of the charts, it’s important to place it at the top of the visualization. Beneath the line chart, there is a bar chart representing weather patterns and a circle chart representing national holidays in the United States. These charts have lower priority than the line chart, so they are placed lower in the dashboard.
Next to the three charts is a heat map representing the traffic volumes by hours of the day. Because a large amount of data is being visualized at once, this chart is larger than the others so stakeholders can view the data more easily.
The line chart and heat map represent two of the timescales in which the stakeholder is most interested: the monthly timescale and the weekly timescale. In these charts, your stakeholders can view which months and days of the week have the highest traffic volume. You can also find other trends: based on the line chart, it seems like the traffic volume for 2017 was generally higher than in 2016.
Note: You also need to delete duplicate legends from your dashboard. Each time you add a chart to your dashboard, you might add a new legend. Unless the legends describe different encoding choices in your charts, you should keep the number of legends to a minimum.
Key takeaways
A dashboard can be more than just an arrangement of charts. In this activity, you organized the charts you made for your stakeholder, but also had the opportunity to incorporate filters and other elements into your visualization. Now that you have assembled your dashboard, you can proceed to the next lesson where you will iterate on your dashboard to meet evolving stakeholder needs.
Iterate on a dashboard
Video: Dashboard iteration
In this stage of your project, you have successfully created a dashboard for tracking traffic volume on the Minnesota interstate. You’ve organized charts into a user-friendly tool, addressing your client’s needs effectively. The video emphasizes the importance of iteration in the dashboard creation process.
The concept of iteration involves making continual improvements to the dashboard. This includes refining aesthetics, design approaches, processing speed, privacy permissions, and more. The Minnesota Department of Transportation, your client, has provided positive feedback on your work but has additional requests.
The feedback email highlights some new features that another team member wants to be added to the dashboard. As the creator, you are now tasked with figuring out the best way to implement these changes. This may involve editing existing graphs, creating new ones, exploring the dataset, or pre-aggregating it with SQL.
It’s crucial to approach the feedback with an open mind, considering the stakeholders’ ideas even when confident in your work. The final phase involves addressing the new features and ensuring that any adjustments align with the project’s goals. Good luck and enjoy the process of refining and enhancing your dashboard!
By now, you’ve created
a dashboard to track traffic volume on
the Minnesota interstate. You created charts and
organized them into a powerful tool that
your clients can use. You’ve also learned about the kinds of questions you should ask
while creating a dashboard. Now, in this video,
we’ll explore iteration. We’ve covered many typical
iterative improvements, including changes to
aesthetics, design approaches, processing speed, privacy
permissions, and many more. There are all kinds of ways to refine a dashboard
during iteration. Fortunately for
you, your client, the Minnesota Department
of Transportation, has clearly explained their
feedback on your dashboard. They’ve sent you an email
with notes about your work. The feedback is very positive, but there’s still
some work to do. Turns out another member of the team wants some new
features added to the dash. It’ll be up to you to figure out how to best implement them. There might be several ways
to action this feedback, such as editing an existing
graph or creating a new one. You may need to
explore the dataset again and pre-aggregate
it with SQL. Or, it’s possible that their request is inappropriate
for the project. If so, you’ll need to be able to justify why you’re unable to make the changes
they’ve asked for. As with all feedback, keep an open mind about
the stakeholders ideas. Even when you’re
confident in your work, it’s always possible to
learn something new. Good luck on the last phase of this role-play exercise.
Have fun with it.
Reading: Email from your supervisor: Redirections and shifts in scope
Reading
Hello again!
Thanks for sending in your dashboard draft. I forwarded it to the Minnesota Department of Transportation team to review. Camila and I just had a call about it, and I wanted to share their feedback with you! She said it was great, but they do have some updates they wanted to ask you to make:
First, Camila shared that they wanted to share this dashboard with some of their team members who aren’t familiar with Tableau. She asked if it would be possible to add a dropdown menu to help them view the filters more easily?
They also requested a button on the dashboard that lets users download it directly from the interface.
Lastly, Camila brought up that they really just need data from 2017 onward. She asked if it would be possible to focus the chart on that time period, but view it at a variety of different timescales?
Overall, they were really impressed with the dashboard, and they’re excited about getting these updates added! Once you’ve incorporated their feedback, I’ll reshare the updated dashboard with them for final review.
Thanks!
Jack Park
Team Supervisor
Reading: Email from your coworker: Iteration tips
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Hey!
Jack mentioned you were using Tableau to create the dashboard for the Minnesota Department of Transportation project. I actually just finished another project with Tableau, and just wanted to send you a quick note with some useful tricks I found while I was working on that dashboard.
Jack told me that the stakeholder wanted more user-friendly filters; I found that filter tiles are a really easy way to incorporate filters that users can interact with. Oh, and while I’m thinking about it, did you know you can set tiles to “floating” to make your dashboard arrangement more flexible? There’s a Tableau guide to Floating and Tiled Layout Arrangements on Dashboards you can check out.
Adding objects: Jack also mentioned that your stakeholders want to add a download button—you can use the Objects menu to add a lot of different artifacts, including a download button, images, and links. Actually, the Tableau Help page has a section in their Create a Dashboard guide about adding objects!
Also, I don’t know if you’re already familiar with tooltips, but they were really useful on my last project. Basically, they let you add extra details about the data that users can view when they hover over any marks in the view. The Tableau Help section about Tooltips covers the basics.
I hope this helps!
Zoe Bernal
Practice Quiz: Activity: Iterate on your dashboard
Activity: Iterate on your dashboard
Reading: Activity Exemplar: Iterate on your dashboard
Activity Exemplar: Iterate on your dashboard
Completed Exemplar
To review the exemplar for this course item, click the following link.
Link to exemplar: Minnesota Traffic Volume Dashboard with Edits
Assessment of Exemplar
Compare the exemplar to your completed activity. Review your work using each of the criteria in the exemplar. What did you do well? Where can you improve? Use your answers to these questions to guide you as you continue to progress through the course.
Note: The exemplar represents one possible way to complete the activity. Yours will likely differ in certain ways. What’s important is that you apply your BI design knowledge and that the iterations on your dashboard address the requested changes from the scenario in this activity.
In this activity, you iterated on the dashboard you made for your stakeholder. You made changes to your dashboard to address new stakeholder needs. In a professional setting, it’s important to make the right decisions so that your iterations meet your stakeholder’s evolving business needs.
This improved version of the dashboard addresses the new requests from your stakeholder. They want you to add a filter menu tile, add a download button, and focus on data from 2017 to present. It’s up to you to decide how to add these features to your dashboard.
First, you can add a filter menu tile. This tile should be placed at the top of your dashboard. Because it applies to the rest of the charts, you want to emphasize its importance.
The download button can be placed in one of the top or bottom corners. Some stakeholders might want to download a static version of the dashboard after they’ve viewed its current status. It might make the most sense to place it at the bottom of your dashboard, where your stakeholder will naturally end up. Alternatively, you might place it near the top of the dashboard if your stakeholder won’t spend a lot of time viewing the dashboard. If your client wants to generate a report quickly to send it to another team member, it would be most helpful to place it near the top where it is quickly accessible.
Finally, focusing on data from 2017 to present could be accomplished with a simple filter in the visualization. There are many ways to only visualize data from a certain time, but a filter is the simplest way to do it. You can even accomplish this with the filter tile you added earlier.
When making dashboard iterations, you might be under a lot of pressure to make quick changes. In this situation, you need to be able to assess which changes are the quickest to implement.
___
Key takeaways
Now that you have iterated on your dashboard, you’ve completed the roleplay exercise. You started with a few stakeholder requests and created charts, a dashboard, and design edits to answer their business questions. In your role as a BI professional, you’ll go through this process every time you create a visualization. Now that you’ve practiced these steps, you’ll be prepared for the end-of-course project for this course and the professional projects you’ll work on in your career.
Review: Complete a BI visualization
Video: Wrap-up
The speaker is congratulating the learner on completing a practical hands-on approach to a BI solution request. The learner has played the role of a BI professional by applying their knowledge of dashboards and stakeholder needs to a realistic work situation. The speaker also points out that the learner should include this project in their portfolio to share with hiring managers during their job hunt.
Congratulations on taking a
practical hands-on approach to a BI solution request. You’ve now played the role
of a BI professional, applying your knowledge of
dashboards and stakeholder needs to a realistic
work situation. While the scenario took place within a learning environment, it contains several
components that you will find in a
professional setting. A stakeholder requested that you build a traffic
monitoring dashboard. You took the information
they shared, then considered key questions, and created a mock-up to
help you select your charts. Next, you created the charts, which involves evaluating
the dataset and deciding what information
to showcase and how. Then it was time to organize the elements
of your dashboard. Your stakeholders wanted a
tool they can refer to for immediate insights so you used your BI skills to
fulfill that need. Finally, you receive feedback
in iterated on your dash. This involves thinking about whether the requested
changes were feasible and made sense within the context
of the project. Include this project
in your portfolio to share with hiring managers
during your job hunt. You’re doing a great job demonstrating all
of your hard work.
Quiz: Module 3 challenge
There are four key questions business intelligence professionals ask when designing a dashboard. One is, “Which measures and dimensions will be represented in each chart?” What are the other three? Select all that apply.
- Which parts of the dataset will make it possible to address the business requirement?
- Which chart types and forms of encoding will be most effective?
What are the risks of including numerous visualizations in a dashboard? Select all that apply.
Overwhelming the user, Slowing down the dashboard
Fill in the blank: When conducting long-term monitoring, larger dashboards will likely require more context in order to make the data _____ for users.
understandable
For what reasons is it important to establish use cases for different views in a live-monitoring dashboard? Select all that apply.
- To simplify the process of accessing useful data
- To avoid users having to interpret data that is irrelevant to them
- It gives different users the ability to drill down to the information they need
When designing a dashboard, how can a business intelligence professional enable users to follow the data’s evolution, rather than isolated snapshots of the latest information?
Build in tracking
Fill in the blank: When creating a dashboard, implementing _____ is beneficial because it helps users understand whether the visualizations indicate good or bad performance.
comparisons
What are the benefits of implementing comparisons when creating a dashboard? Select all that apply.
- It helps users interpret whether the visualizations indicate good or bad performance
- It quickly enables users to understand why the data in the dashboard is useful