Information dashboards that display BSC-related measures are often designed to replicate the strategy map or the cause-and-effect relationships between each measure. Just as we took a more disciplined approach to combine various perspectives, we will also reflect on a set of formal design rules called the Gestalt principles of perceptual organization to design the information dashboard.
Molded by human evolution, we are biased in the way that we visually perceive our environment. For example, how do we recognize the form of a tree, based on individual leaves and branches? We recognize the shape of a tree by grouping leaves that are close together, are of similar color and shape, or even by how the leaves are connected to the branches.
In the early twentieth century, a group of researchers called Gestalt (the German word for form or shape) psychologists began to study how we were able to unite...