The Dashboard Spy

Dashboard design teams using enterprise dashboard software packages such as Xcelsius don’t get under the hood and create their own graphics. The idea of most dashboard frameworks and applications is that there is a pre-designed library of graphics for the dashboarders to use. In the case of Crystal Xcelsius by Business Objects, there is a palette of graphics such as sliders, dials and charts. You simply choose the control you want, wire it up to your Microsoft Excel spreadsheet (in the case of an Xcelsius dashboard) and publish it as a SWF flash file.

The point I’m trying to make is that you consume graphic styles that are designed by a graphic design team.

When you have the luxury of building a custom dashboard, you get to dictate the styling of every part of the dashboard system. Take a look at this graphic:

The above graphic was created by a graphic artist using Adobe Illustrator CS2. It is a pie chart with segment annotations. The look is now commonly found in web 2.0 style applications.

An online tutorial called How to Make Pretty Pie Charts explains the step by step process involved. It walks you through the actions necessary in Illustrator to create that pie chart.

I’m not expecting that the typical dashboard project member be able to use Illustrator to create their own business intelligence graphics, but the point is to show that when you get under the hood, you can literally create the exact look and feel that you want. You can have complete control of the visual effects of the charts, graphs, tables and other dashboard components. 

Tags: Dashboard Design, Dashboard Pie Charts, Xcelsius Dashboards