Hi :) My name is Anastasiia. My IT journey started with a passion for UI design, later also for UX design, and over the last couple of years I gained some experience as a content manager. A few months ago I started exploring data analytics and data visualization more closely, and I’m happy that as my interest grew, I found The Data School by The Information Lab.
I’ve just finished my first week of training, and it was a week full of new information, meeting many amazing people, and learning more about the company.
In my first blog, I thought I’d share some tips that were very helpful for me when creating my application projects. I found a very helpful video on the TIL YouTube channel, where some dashboards were reviewed and commented on with tips for improvement, as well as a couple of examples of successful applications. Here are some of the tips:
- Use an intuitive and informative title.
- Provide some context (for example for abbreviations, terminology, or units of measure).
- Remove unnecessary information (like in the video example: latitude and longitude in the tooltip).
- Start with less granularity at the top and break it down further through your analysis.
- Make it as clear and easy to understand as possible so that any user, regardless of background, can understand your dashboard.
- Avoid double encoding (duplicating information, e.g., showing labels on the bars and also the same info on the axis). By doing that, you make the user process extra unnecessary details. I personally prefer to use labels in those cases, as I think it makes it much easier and faster to read numbers rather than scales.
- Use colors consistently (same colors for the same things).
- Every chart you show should answer a question and provide some meaning for your analysis.
- If you have interactive features, make a note for people about where they can click and for what purpose.
- Don’t forget to pay attention to your tooltips as well (naming, formatting).
- Mention your data source.
- Share your analysis with friends or family members who aren’t familiar with your data to see if they can understand what you are trying to communicate.
For more tips, insights and resources, check out the video — it’s super interesting and informative, and there are also many other helpful videos on the channel. Have fun! 😊