Lessons Learned from Designing Visualization Dashboards

A variety of visualization guidelines, principles, and techniques are available to help create a visualization-based dashboard, but few publications discuss the experience of designing dashboards in the real world. This article discuss the lessons learned from designing applications for small start-up companies and institutions. From their experience as visualization practitioners, the authors confirm the need for tailored and customizable approaches, emphasize the need for a quicker way to create functional prototypes, point out frequent misconceptions on the scope of a functional prototype, discuss how performance can affect prototyping, and discuss the resistance of industrial partners to involve their customers in requirements gathering.