The Dashboard Spy

The Dashboard Spy has been thinking about the phrase “User Interface” in regards to business intelligence dashboards. What exactly do we mean when we say “User Interface”? What I’m getting at is that some dashboards have “real” interfaces - in which a business user can control the display (data domain, visualizations, charting options, etc), but other dashboards really don’t have any controls at all and simply communicate information.

Believe me, the old standby of a read-only dashboard is alive and well. A lot of dashboards are just reports with visual components. Now, before you say that those aren’t “real” dashboards, let me remind you that in the metaphor of an automotive dashboard, there isn’t much you actually do on that dashboard either. In a car, you adjust the car’s operation through controls located away from the dashboard. You simply look at it to see how much over the speed limit you were when you see the state trooper behind the bushes. You take action away from the dashboard (using the gas pedal to either slow down or speed away, depending on your tendencies).

In a plane, however, the dashboard, or cockpit, itself actually does have plenty of knobs, buttons and dials to adjust, so maybe the archetypical dashboard is a real “interface”.

But, do digital dashboards, act differently? Hmmm.

Rather than turn this into a “what is the difference between a dashboard and report and scorecard” discussion, let’s look at different ways that users “interface” with their dashboards. Here are some models that come to mind:

• The Read Only Model - Simply look at the dashboard with no expectations of interaction with it. The dashboard serves to communicate snapshot information. Call the IT department to create new reports.
• The Enterprise Reporting Model - Users can peruse canned reports, but also run ad-hoc queries and save them as future reports.
• The What-if Model - AKA the Excel Model - Give me full access to manipulate the data. Spreadsheets are the modeling tools that run the business world. Give me the ability to create new cubes of data so that I can explore new scenarios.
• The Community Model - Infuse the previous models with the power of the collective brain. Leverage the work of your colleagues. Don’t waste time working up things from scratch. Allow great content to surface. Mark reports and dashboard portlets as favorites and share them across the enterprise.
• The Unified Model - the nirvana of the enterprise. Imagine a portal that contains all the tools and access you need to take care of your responsibilities. Collaboration, communication, business process workflows - all combined to power your workspace. As you complete your work tasks, you are informed by graphical representations of business conditions and all the relevant attributes of the tasks at hand. You can also monitor the results of previous business adjustments and tweak them further. Now, that’s a dashboard!

What do you think?

The Dashboard Spy

Tags: User Interaction Models for Business Dashboards, UI, User Interface, Dashboards, The future of business intelligence, Dashboard UI, Dashboard User Interactions