Determine How to Design and Create the Visualization Platform

Data visualization best practices are

• Speak to a specific audience
• Choose the right visual
• Provide context
• Keep things simple and digestible
• Design for user engagement

Important Considerations to design and create the Visualization platform

• Who is the visualization designed for? – When developing a visualization or a dashboard, identify the highest priority persona. Who will be looking at this data? What challenges do they face and what roadblocks prevent them from overcoming those challenges? Resist the temptation to create a dashboard that meets the needs of every single stakeholder who might one day look at it.
• What decision do I want the user to make and under what circumstance? – Determine what decision(s) you want to drive. It’s helpful to think about the frequency of the decision: is the decision strategic, meaning it may only need to be answered once—such as whether or not to buy property—or is the decision operational—such as whether or not to approve a claim—and needs to be answered multiple times a day? Or, is the decision more tactical, requiring regular weekly or monthly review at a meeting?
• Choose the right visual for your purpose – How do you know which type of data visual works best? Select from various Chart types, table designs, etc
• Provide Context – An excellent data visualization technique to help demonstrate performance would be the use of color, arrows, text, and other visual cues to help viewers see at a glance how to interpret information.
• Keep visualizations and dashboards simple
• Design to keep users engaged – merge the experience of users’ workflows with actionable insights, suggestions, predictions, and next best actions to take for the task or decision at hand.