The Big Book of Dashboards: Visualizing Your Data Using Real–World Business Scenarios

Praise for THE BIG BOOK OF DASHBOARDS

"The Big Book of Dashboards provides a solid treatment of the fundamentals of data visualization, but the numerous examples are what set this book apart. The comments from the authors after each chapter remind the reader that creating influential dashboards is both a science and an art. This book will spend more time on my desk than on my shelf incredibly practical."
Jeffrey Camm, Inmar Presidential Chair, Associate Dean of Business Analytics, Wake Forest School of Business

"Some books about visualization focus on principles and guidelines, but they don′t devote enough pages to explain how to apply them to the design of complex, multi–section displays, like business dashboards. This book is the opposite of that. While the book contains an introduction to data visualization fundamentals, it is the numerous examples of real dashboards that sets it apart. If you′ve ever found yourself stuck when creating a dashboard, you will likely find a solution here."
Alberto Cairo, author of The Truthful Art: Data, Charts, and Maps for Communication

"This book is full of beautiful dashboards along with uber–practical advice from three authors with many years of experience. It is a treasure chest for hardcore data–viz geeks and business leaders needing to get smart on how to present data to optimize operations."
J.D. Whitlock, VP, Enterprise Intelligence, Mercy Health

"This book provides you with a vast array of real–world dashboards, and shares the thoughts and considerations that have gone into each example. The authors even provide a full explanation that acts as a user guide. Mix and match these ideas, and you′ll find what you need to visualize your data."
Josh Tapley, Director of Data Visualization, Comcast Corporation

"The artful combination of technique and problem solving come together in The Big Book of Dashboards as the authors demonstrate powerful design principles using real world use cases. Apply these principles to your next dashboard and watch your data come alive."
Bruce Henry, Managing Partner, False Peak Ventures

Introduction

Part I A Strong Foundation

Chapter 1 Data Visualization: A Primer

Part II The Scenarios

Chapter 2 Course Metrics Dashboard

Chapter 3 Comparing Individual Performance with Peers

Chapter 4 What–If Analysis: Wage Increase Ramifications

Chapter 5 Executive Sales Dashboard

Chapter 6 Ranking by Now, Comparing with Then

Chapter 7 Are We On Pace to Reach Our Goals?

Chapter 8 Multiple Key Performance Metrics

Chapter 9 Power Plant Operations Monitoring

Chapter 10 Showing Year–to–Date and Year–over–Year at the Same Time (YTD and YOY)

Chapter 11 Premier League Player Performance Metrics

Chapter 12 RBS 6 Nations Championship Match Performance Analysis

Chapter 13 Web Analytics

Chapter 14 Patient History Analysis of Recent Hospital Admissions

Chapter 15 Hospitality Dashboard for Hotel Management

Chapter 16 Sentiment Analysis: Showing Overall Distribution

Chapter 17 Showing Sentiment with Net Promoter Score

Chapter 18 Server Process Monitoring

Chapter 19 Big Mac Index

Chapter 20 Complaints Dashboard

Chapter 21 Hospital Operating Room Utilization

Chapter 22 Showing Rank and Magnitude

Chapter 23 Measuring Claims across Multiple Measures and Dimensions

Chapter 24 Showing Churn or Turnover

Chapter 25 Showing Actual versus Potential Utilization

Chapter 26 Health Care Provider Productivity Monitoring

Chapter 27 Telecom Operator Executives Dashboard

Chapter 28 The Economy at a Glance

Chapter 29 Call Center

Part III Dashboards in the Real World

Chapter 30 Want to Engage People? Make Your Dashboards Personal

Chapter 31 Visualizing Time

Chapter 32 Beware the Dead–End Dashboard

Chapter 33 The Allure of Red and Green

Chapter 34 The Allure of Pies and Donuts

Chapter 35 Clouds and Bubbles

Chapter 36 A journey into the unknown

Index

STEVE WEXLER is the Founder and Principal of Data Revelations. He has helped scores of organizations worldwide understand and visualize their data.

JEFFREY SHAFFER is the VP of Information Technology and Analytics at Unifund and Adjunct Professor teaching Data Visualization at the University of Cincinnati.

ANDY COTGREAVE is Technical Evangelist at Tableau and writes the Living With Data column for ComputerWorld.