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The Big Book of Dashboards: Visualizing Your Data Using Real-World Business Scenarios
The definitive reference book with real-world solutions you won't find anywhere else The Big Book of Dashboards presents a comprehensive reference for those tasked with building or overseeing the development of business dashboards. Comprising dozens of examples that address different industries and departments (healthcare, transportation, finance, human resources, marketing, customer service, sports, etc.) and different platforms (print, desktop, tablet, smartphone, and conference room display) The Big Book of Dashboards is the only book that matches great dashboards with real-world business scenarios. By organizing the book based on these scenarios and offering practical and effective visualization examples, The Big Book of Dashboards will be the trusted resource that you open when you need to build an effective business dashboard. In addition to the scenarios there's an entire section of the book that is devoted to addressing many practical and psychological factors you will encounter in your work. It's great to have theory and evidenced-based research at your disposal, but what will you do when somebody asks you to make your dashboard 'cooler' by adding packed bubbles and donut charts? The expert authors have a combined 30-plus years of hands-on experience helping people in hundreds of organizations build effective visualizations. They have fought many 'best practices' battles and having endured bring an uncommon empathy to help you, the reader of this book, survive and thrive in the data visualization world. A well-designed dashboard can point out risks, opportunities, and more; but common challenges and misconceptions can make your dashboard useless at best, and misleading at worst. The Big Book of Dashboards gives you the tools, guidance, and models you need to produce great dashboards that inform, enlighten, and engage.
448 pages, Paperback
Published April 24, 2017
143 people are currently reading
1589 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
January 5, 2018
It had great examples, but I was looking for more theory and explanation on the purpose of dashboards and what they should try to convey to an audience. Storytelling with Data was a stronger book in that regard.
November 14, 2019
Repetitive, but also pretty definitive. It's nice that it even has a section at the end for "what if my boss insists upon using pie charts?"
You only need three books on data visualization, and this is one of them. It explains recurring data visualization best (you should only build dashboards for questions that need to be monitored, not for questions that only need to be answered once). The other two are Visualize This (for exploratory analysis that only needs to be answered once) and Storytelling with Data (for explanatory analysis).
I expect that of the three books on analysis, I will refer to this one the most because it serves most as a reference. It's also the last of the three that I would recommend reading, since you're more likely to need the other two. Even if your job is to build dashboards, start with the others first because they are better at the basic principles than this book.
You only need three books on data visualization, and this is one of them. It explains recurring data visualization best (you should only build dashboards for questions that need to be monitored, not for questions that only need to be answered once). The other two are Visualize This (for exploratory analysis that only needs to be answered once) and Storytelling with Data (for explanatory analysis).
I expect that of the three books on analysis, I will refer to this one the most because it serves most as a reference. It's also the last of the three that I would recommend reading, since you're more likely to need the other two. Even if your job is to build dashboards, start with the others first because they are better at the basic principles than this book.
December 24, 2021
There are many visualization principal books out there in the market, but the book that covered real-world use case dashboard was not so easy to find. It was quite useful for those who wanna grab the idea in each cases. For instance, NPS score, powerplant monitoring, customer service feedback, executive summary etc.
The book also contained chart recommendations+alternative visualization choices with acceptable reasonings. Plus, Tableau user gonna earn a lot of tips for this one as the main tool for this book was Tableau.
The book also contained chart recommendations+alternative visualization choices with acceptable reasonings. Plus, Tableau user gonna earn a lot of tips for this one as the main tool for this book was Tableau.
January 26, 2019
Zeer inspirerend boek over hoe je data gebruiks- en leesvriendelijker kunt voorstellen in de vorm van dashboards. Ik had wel last van een "brain explosion"... Te veel creativiteit, te veel ideeën. Eigenlijk moet dit boek gewoon in de buurt liggen van mensen die company dashboards maken, zodat die een uurtje kunnen doorbladeren om ideeën op te doen telkens voor ze concreet aan de slag gaan...
January 23, 2018
When on a mission to build a dashboard that either summarizes your data, shows progress towards a goal or even displays KPIs, where do you start? Do you just combine a couple of charts together and call it a dashboard? What is the best practice? These are some of the challenges that the authors of The Big Book of Dashboards: Visualizing Your Data Using Real-World Business Scenarios set to address. Here is a book on real world dashboard examples and an in-depth analysis on why they succeed.
Though not meant to be a book on the fundamentals of data visualization, the authors do a tremendous jobs in orienting those new to the field. It starts with a very strong foundation on why we visualize data before proceeding to how it’s done. Concepts on common chart types, preattentive attributes and color are covered in a nonthreatening approach. All these are meant to prepare the reader for the best to come.
The second part of the book was eye popping. Filled with dashboards covering multiple industries, built for different platforms and targeting varied audiences, there is more than anyone could ask for. The detailed commentary and analysis that follows each dashboard makes going through each feel like a treat. This organization also makes this book a perfect reference if you are only interested in a certain scenario.
The final part of the book was my favorite. It gives the reader practical advice on how to succeed in the real world. Founded on over 30 years of data visualization experience shared among the authors and extensive research, handy tips are given on best practices.
A well-built dashboard should be user friendly, performance effective and information accurate. Its design could be the key to its adoption. This is the best book to help in the process of building an effective one. Highly recommended.
Though not meant to be a book on the fundamentals of data visualization, the authors do a tremendous jobs in orienting those new to the field. It starts with a very strong foundation on why we visualize data before proceeding to how it’s done. Concepts on common chart types, preattentive attributes and color are covered in a nonthreatening approach. All these are meant to prepare the reader for the best to come.
The second part of the book was eye popping. Filled with dashboards covering multiple industries, built for different platforms and targeting varied audiences, there is more than anyone could ask for. The detailed commentary and analysis that follows each dashboard makes going through each feel like a treat. This organization also makes this book a perfect reference if you are only interested in a certain scenario.
The final part of the book was my favorite. It gives the reader practical advice on how to succeed in the real world. Founded on over 30 years of data visualization experience shared among the authors and extensive research, handy tips are given on best practices.
A well-built dashboard should be user friendly, performance effective and information accurate. Its design could be the key to its adoption. This is the best book to help in the process of building an effective one. Highly recommended.
April 29, 2024
As it claims, this book is a collection of dashboard designs with author analysis. The discussion portions focus on the effectiveness of each design's attempt at data visualization.
If you are brand new to data visualization and you need to design a data-intensive dashboard, this book has some utility. Beyond that use case, with the book now approaching five years post-publication, I'd suggest starting with a foundational data visualization book (something from Stephen Few or Edward Tufte).
If you are brand new to data visualization and you need to design a data-intensive dashboard, this book has some utility. Beyond that use case, with the book now approaching five years post-publication, I'd suggest starting with a foundational data visualization book (something from Stephen Few or Edward Tufte).
June 24, 2023
A solid read with many real-world examples, theories, and practical advice. Well written, easy to understand, and (do I dare say it?) fun.
The book was split into three parts.
The first part was on theory and foundational knowledge. This an excellent review to understand why we visualize things the way we do in data.
The second part was practical real-world examples with good (and bad) alternatives. The authors also explained their reasoning and opinions that sometimes differed.
The final part was how to succeed in the real world. This covered a range of topics like ways of visualizing time, what to do when your boss is insistent on pie charts, and exploring the unknown. Honestly, it wrapped up the entire book quite well.
The Big Book of Dashboards has actually helped me design many real-world projects. It's also helped me design alternative ways of viewing things that have added value to my work. The theories, examples, and concepts allowed me to pick and choose what worked for my needs.
Even though this book focused on Tableau, it still shows what good data visualization can do. This book still helped my foundational understanding of what I wanted to show at the end of the day.
My congratulations to Steve Wexler, Jeffrey Shaffer, and Andy Cotgreave for this book.
5/5. Favorited & useful.
PS: I did watch the "More Cowbell" video on YouTube one of the authors recommended -- HILARIOUS!
The book was split into three parts.
The first part was on theory and foundational knowledge. This an excellent review to understand why we visualize things the way we do in data.
The second part was practical real-world examples with good (and bad) alternatives. The authors also explained their reasoning and opinions that sometimes differed.
The final part was how to succeed in the real world. This covered a range of topics like ways of visualizing time, what to do when your boss is insistent on pie charts, and exploring the unknown. Honestly, it wrapped up the entire book quite well.
The Big Book of Dashboards has actually helped me design many real-world projects. It's also helped me design alternative ways of viewing things that have added value to my work. The theories, examples, and concepts allowed me to pick and choose what worked for my needs.
Even though this book focused on Tableau, it still shows what good data visualization can do. This book still helped my foundational understanding of what I wanted to show at the end of the day.
My congratulations to Steve Wexler, Jeffrey Shaffer, and Andy Cotgreave for this book.
5/5. Favorited & useful.
PS: I did watch the "More Cowbell" video on YouTube one of the authors recommended -- HILARIOUS!
October 16, 2017
I look at numbers for a living. Part of my job is creating visual dashboards of data and looking at other organizations’ dashboards. What I’ve learned over twenty years of doing this is that there are clear differences between good dashboards and bad ones. This book does a tremendous job of discussing this very fact. The authors are Tableau experts who create dashboards professionally. In the first part of their book, they walk through same basic dos and don’ts of data visualization (e.g. pie graphs are worse than bar graphs, use color schemes that respect colorblindness, don’t cram too many layers in one graph). The remainder of the book are real-life examples of corporate dashboards where the authors discuss what makes each piece of these dashboards effective. They even discuss the iterations some of the visuals went through before arriving at their final form, and how/why the final forms were more effective than original versions. The book is filled with great visuals of everything they are discussing. I’ve been doing this work for two decades and I learned a few good tips. Definitely a solid and recommended read for data professionals.
June 20, 2018
The book is written with friendly language and daily examples, not for an advanced dashboard or data visualization developer/designer. Easy to understand even if you are a beginner in data visualization and analysis. As a data person, I read this book to confirm my apprehension of data visualization and dashboard, as well as to give structure to my current (and messy) experience-acquired understanding on dashboard and data visualization. Though I don't get the structure I thought I would (because of the way the book is organized), but I learned many new ways and insights on data visualization, design, and monitoring.
The book is organized in 3 parts: foundation, scenarios, and real world application. I skimmed the scenario chapters (which was the major part of the book) and still feel that I got interesting takeaways from the book. I would recommend this book if you want to have a general information on dashboard and best (and worst) practices of data visualization methods. Also it provides you information on how you can 'trick' bad visualization requests (you know, those requests that are against best practices, theories, and/or ideals).
The book is organized in 3 parts: foundation, scenarios, and real world application. I skimmed the scenario chapters (which was the major part of the book) and still feel that I got interesting takeaways from the book. I would recommend this book if you want to have a general information on dashboard and best (and worst) practices of data visualization methods. Also it provides you information on how you can 'trick' bad visualization requests (you know, those requests that are against best practices, theories, and/or ideals).
August 21, 2020
The book provides colorful dashboard examples for different industries (utilities, sports, healthcare, IT, telecomm, and financial) and for different purposes (employee performance, what-if analysis, product ranking, tracking to goals, capacity monitoring, and year over year comparison). After reading Chapters 1 and 2, I recommend jumping to the chapters that interest you most. The authors do an excellent job of explaining the pros and cons of the dashboards. However, they go into a lot of details and it can be exhausting to read through all that if you have no interest in the topic of that chapter.
March 10, 2023
In general I was very happy with this book. The selected dashboards that were presented were good representations of what can be needed in different situations. The accompanying explanations helped make sense why decisions were appropriate, or what might be improved. The quality of the color print made the illustrations easy on the eyes and there wasn't guesswork about what was being included in a dashboard or what color combination was involved.
My only criticism was that the layout could have been improved, where the text would frequently reference a screenshot that wasn't visible until the page was turned.
My only criticism was that the layout could have been improved, where the text would frequently reference a screenshot that wasn't visible until the page was turned.
August 6, 2017
Ok wow this is indeed a BIG book, with 600+ pages of content. I am impressed that there is a huge variety of examples covered across different industries - sales, energy, healthcare, hospitality, media, telecommunications, sports etc., so there is a pretty good chance something relevant to your industry is covered. Overall, it's easy to understand, and a good resource to sharpen the basics of data visualisation. However, I took 1 star away as the book focused on telling you what you should or should not do, but not on how to do these in Tableau.
March 10, 2021
Great book for what it does. Learn the basics of data storytelling first, but if you do any kind of business dashboards, this book is full of examples of how you can apply the practices of data storytelling in the dashboard format. Use cases vary, and each example walks you through the elements of the dashboard along with providing some alternate use cases for the dashboard style and author commentary. I found that even though I'm fairly advanced in this skill, just looking at so many examples sparked my creativity quite a bit!
November 16, 2018
If you need a book that will give you ideas for how to build appealing dashboards (and you like Tableau), then this is a great book for you. It has lots of useful examples of good dashboards that may be used in a variety of circumstances. Quite good for dashboard-building professionals.
I found the introduction a little sparse in visual analytics theory: the stuff that was covered very much like a Stephen Few book. But for the target audience, a great read nonetheless.
I found the introduction a little sparse in visual analytics theory: the stuff that was covered very much like a Stephen Few book. But for the target audience, a great read nonetheless.
September 8, 2020
My daily job is building dashboards for various business units and honestly, I thought i am skilled enough to build a dashboard in tableau/power bi/Einstein analytics. But only after going through the book, i realized how much of best practices that i was missing. This is not a book for a beginner who is into business intelligence/data visualization. This book doesn't provide you tutorials about dashboard building. If you are looking for a book with a step by step approach to dashboard making, this isn't for you. This is for intermediate to even experts who want to understand multiple real world problems and the approach the zen's would apply when creating dashboard. It does have primer chapter about data visualization, but, it is all about multiple various scenarios and the approaches to handle such scenarios.
My affiliate link for this book:
https://www.amazon.in/gp/product/1119...
My affiliate link for this book:
https://www.amazon.in/gp/product/1119...
October 3, 2018
This book is filled with interesting ideas and thoughtful analysis of variance dashboards. I felt a few of the presentations were changed for the sake of change and a few were not even improvements. Overall, Wexler gave me plenty to think about when designing my next dashboard and I'm happy I spent time with this book.
August 20, 2020
A go to book on my bookshelf that I reference frequently for inspiration and design ideas. It is heavy and the paper quality is durable and nice to the touch. Lots of illustrations and variations on each dashboard design. The authors share conversations about design choices and preferences. One of my favorites.
December 28, 2020
Terrible book. The dashboards presented are complicated, not easy to understand, won’t work in a mobile-first world, and barely use annotations (probably the most powerful visualization technique). I’m alarmed by the fact that beginners to the field will use a book like this to understand “best practices” :/
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February 5, 2024The primary problem among people with CVD (Color Vision Deficiency) is with the colors RED (protanopia) and GREEN (deuteranopia) . INSTEAD OF #E22049 (red), #FFF200 (yellow), #0D9E49 (green) -> #8D1D1C, #FFDE17, #83C79B.
For people with strong CVD, red, green and orange will all appear as brown. Do not use the 3 colors
+ brown together. Blue, purple and red should also be avoided together.
For people with strong CVD, red, green and orange will all appear as brown. Do not use the 3 colors
+ brown together. Blue, purple and red should also be avoided together.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 28, 2017
Very good reference on dashboard design, it covers example dashboard and how it can be used. It also covers why a technique work, and doesn't work. It doesn't cover step by step, but it does cover some fundamentals. very nice
January 10, 2019
Not only did this book give me some ideas on how to represent data more effectively, but it was a very interesting read. If you need to provide audiences with data in a way that they can understand the key pieces of information, this is well worth your time.
August 10, 2017
I think the first part of the book is excellent because it gives readers a foundation to build upon. The book would have been better if the actual files to the dashboards are downloadable.
May 7, 2018
Relevant real examples
Great resource on best practices and example dashboards. Also enjoyed guidance that dashboards must be a living document. Highly recommended
Great resource on best practices and example dashboards. Also enjoyed guidance that dashboards must be a living document. Highly recommended
March 11, 2019
Skimmed large parts, but a great overview and discussion of data visualization dashboards.
July 14, 2019
It was a good book to think about how to use visual dashboards, and how to set them up. A good book for the right person that needs it.
August 4, 2019
This should be on the shelf of any data visualization specialist.
November 4, 2020
Super useful
January 23, 2021
LOTS of information and examples.
July 10, 2021
Some good references - really appreciated the focus on designing for color-blind-friendliness.
March 20, 2023
Decent information, didn't love all of the scenarios provided but could be useful to some people
Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews