Are dashboards more trustworthy?

PolicyViz Newsletter #32

Feb 28, 2023

Hi all,

When I first switched over to Substack, I was pasting in draft blog posts as the main content. These were posts that I wanted to put on the site, but hadn’t quite gotten to finishing them up. The newsletter was a good mechanism to at least force me to get those posts out the door. But the last couple of weeks I’ve just been writing free, top-of-mind-type stuff instead of drafting and editing and reviewing. I’m going to do the same today (writing on Monday morning) and share my thoughts about whether dashboards might be perceived as a more trustworthy way to communicate data than static graphs or PDF reports.

Here’s the backstory. I was invited to talk to a community of practice some of my Urban Institute colleagues organize. This particular group was made up of about six groups around the country, each interested in exploring how to improve—or start creating—dashboards.

I developed a new talk for the meeting, presenting some of the core issues I see with good dashboard design and considerations. I relied heavily on this great talk on dashboard design from Chantilly Jaggernauth and great dashboard examples from Kevin Flerlage (among others).

I set the stage for the talk by posting the definition of dashboards from Steve Wexler, Jeff Shaffer, and Andy Cotgreave’s great book, The Big Book of Dashboards:

A dashboard is a visual display of data used to monitor conditions and/or facilitate understanding.

I did modify it a bit (my changes in bold):

A dashboard is an interactive visual display of data and information used to monitor conditions and/or facilitate understanding and exploration.

The “and information” part isn’t that important (though I was thinking of images, sound, and video that some incorporate into their dashboards), but adding “interactive” and “exploration” helps focus the definition on dashboards the way I think many do—interactive data displays that enable people to sort, filter, and zoom. Without those words, I think a static infographic falls into this definition and I want to keep the two communication concepts separate.

Anyways, one of the groups that is thinking about creating a dashboard (we talked possible tools later) identified their target audience as not only policymakers in their state, but also citizens—primarily as an effort to be transparent with the public and make the data visible and available.

It occurred to me that in addition to the fact that many people like dashboards and interactive data visualizations simply because it enables them to do something (like click or scroll), I wonder whether the interactivity helps make the data seem more trustworthy than a static set of graphs in, say, a PDF document. It’s entirely possible the data used in both visualizations would be the same, but does the fact that a dashboard “feels” more alive—and often enables the user to immediately download the data—make it feel more open, transparent, and trustworthy?

I don’t know the answer to this question and there are certainly ways to lie with dashboards or interactive data visualizations as much as you can with static graphs, but I have a feeling that the ability to hover, filter, and see the data change in real time provides users with confidence when exploring the data that they may not get from static graphs or PDF reports.

Does this mean everything should be an interactive dashboard? No, I don’t think so. Not every use case and every data communication effort requires this kind of level of interaction with the data. But as the tools get better and easier to use—and easier to pull graphs together into a cohesive view—it may be the case that in the near future simple dashboards will help us project more transparency, honesty, and objectivity with our data visualization efforts.

Take care and thanks,

Jon

Visit PolicyViz

PolicyViz Podcast with Ellie Balk

Check out this week’s episode of the PolicyViz Podcast! Ellie Balk joins me to talk about her data-driven art! Ellie creates large scale data visualization public artworks using paint, glass, sound and most recently ceramics. Community engagement and interaction is at the core of her work. Check out the show and Ellie’s website!

Listen to the Show

Match It Game—Today is Your Last Chance!

After the recent credit card fraud attack and changes at my fulfillment company, I’ve decided to remove the Match It data visualization card game and the Graphic Continuum laminated sheet from my online store. I’ve reduced the prices of each to be nearly at-cost, so this is the lowest you’ll be able to get them. It’s possible I’ll offer some for sale in the future and ship from my home, but the more likely scenario is that I’ll just donate them to a school (if you’re a K-12 educator and interested in getting a set, please reach out). Today, February 28, 2023, is your last chance to scoop them up while you can!

Visit the Shop

Things I’m Reading and Watching

Books

Joyful Infographics by Nigel Holmes
The 1619 Project by Nikole Hannah-Jones
A Revolution in Three Acts by Hadju and Carey

TV, Movies, and Miscellaneous

Last of Us, HBO Max
Speed, (my kids hadn’t seen it and whoa, it still holds up!), Fios On Demand
Hacks, HBOMax

Note: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

YouTube videos are back!

I recently posted a short Excel tutorial on number formatting and a data visualization critique video of an interactive map. I’ve also recorded—and am in the process of recording more—Excel and Tableau tutorials. My favorite thing so far is that I bought the Camtasia video recording and editing tool, so I’m trying new openings and animations throughout. Check them out and let me know what you think!

PolicyViz on YouTube

The PolicyViz Newsletter

Discussion about this post