Kill the Button

A Priest, a Rabbi and Mormon Missionaries walk into a bar. The bartender says, 'Is this some kind of a joke?'

Half of you are giggling like school girls, half of you are waiting for the punchline, and the rest haven't read this post yet. Because if you have and you're smarter than the average bear, you'd know how funny that is! A simple joke for a simple folk...

Which brings me to one of my ongoing themes... Simplicity. Standard buttons in QlikView are not simple. They look like a blue NyQuil:

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I'm as guilty, maybe more guilty, as anyone. I love to build the most clever analytical wingding to ever grace the presence of the lowly sales manager's desktop. Witness 'Color Me Crazy' or 'Perfect Probability Pipeline'. That stuff is genius!

But, believe it or not, your users suffer through your creativity in order to get something done. Like selling something that pays your exorbitant salary. It's time to help them.

Highlight the Trend

Because I went to the Derek Zoolander Center For Kids Who Can't Read Good And Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too, I can now teach you really, really, ridiculously good Qlikview tricks.

This one's no different. It's a good way to cut through the clutter of a chart that displays a large number of lines.

Line charts are great tools for showing trends over time. Your user can easily visualize whether the data is getting better or worse by the shape of the chart. They are not good for charting distinct categories. A good example of a bad idea is to use a line chart to show sales by territory. A proper example is to chart sales over time, split up by city.

Design Choices

Back in the 90s, I took a photography class. I loved it. Exposure, f-stops, focal length, mixing chemicals, dodge and burn, zone system, doing things in the dark. Which is weird, considering that photography is all about the light. With all the science and math involved in great photography, guess what the best tip to a good picture was? Frame your shot, then take one step closer. It simplifies your shot and keeps what’s important in the picture.

What's this have to do with dashboarding*? It seems we have a parallel path to better communicate the importance of our data. We have an immense amount of information at our fingertips, and the temptation is to show as much as possible.

Bar Charts

Bar charts are one of the best ways to communicate information. They are simple and easy to read. A few simple upgrades will take your presentation one step beyond.