Any discussion on designing dashboards should begin with information about constructing well-designed content. The quality of the dashboard layout and the utilization of technical tips and tricks do not matter if the content is sub-par. In other words, we should consider the worksheets displayed on dashboards and ensure that those worksheets are well designed. Therefore, our discussion will begin with a consideration of visualization design principles. Regarding these principles, it's tempting to declare a set of rules:
To plot change over time, use a line graph
To show breakdowns of the whole, use a treemap
To compare discrete elements, use a bar chart
To visualize correlation, use a scatter plot
But of course even a cursory review of the preceding list brings to mind many variations and alternatives! Thus, in this chapter, we will consider various rules while always keeping in mind that rules (at least rules such as these) are meant to be broken.