Authored by Raymond D'Lima
4 min read
Reports, and dashboards, when built effectively, can change how a business is run, and enhance a company's understanding of their data.
Business Intelligence reports are increasingly considered to be of critical importance to enterprises, as data visualization capabilities enable better informed decision-making, especially for non-technical users.
The image below details a 4-step process that takes us from raw data, to insightful, visual reporting.
Report design is a collaborative process that requires looking at the business through the lens of the user. What area of the business are they focused on? What are they attempting to understand with their data?
Answering these questions is key to guiding the design and layout of the reports. The rewards of undergoing this rigorous process will be reaped later, as user adoption and acceptance of the solution is much easier, if the BI team and the user are communicating effectively, and have carefully defined the scope of the report required.
Here is where we define what we hope to accomplish from the report, the problem the company is trying to solve, and what success would mean in terms of the solution that is about to be developed.
At the planning stage it sometimes becomes apparent that there is more than one message that needs to be conveyed. Keep it simple! More reports can always be created. It is important to be concise, precise and elegantly display the data - eliminate clutter and deliver a clear message.
Taking the time to understand both the data set, and the business, is essential to creating a dashboard that provides insight and delivers value. A rigorous, meticulous discovery process will provide the designer with the perspective necessary to distill the dataset, and highlight the metrics and trends that are relevant to the issue at hand.
Selection criteria enables us to choose components, like tables and visualizations, to allow the user to drill through the report, deep into the data.
Drilldown ability needs to be considered to determine how deep into the data the user will be able to see. This is of vital importance and some trade-offs need to be made between the level of detail available to the user, as we want to create a report that is not cluttered. The old adage often holds true here - less, is more!
UI & UX will be considered when we make decisions on how the user interacts with the data. Interactive elements, like tooltips, allow us to highlight certain quantities and metrics, and provide additional information without cluttering up the report.
Tactfully delivering a message is important, especially if you want the message to have an impact. Select colours that effectively convey the message. This will vary by user, industry and business process, and can have significant impacts on the usability and adoption of your solution.
A mock-up is created simply to provide the user with an idea of what the report will look like and can easily be drafted on paper, a whiteboard or digitally.
Maintaining clear, open and honest communications with the report user is vital. Make every effort to make them part of each step of the process as this will help build a solution that actually meets requirements, and also increase user adoption once the report is rolled out.
Beta Test(ing) is completed after the developers connect the data, create the data model and visualize the data. Giving targeted individuals access to a beta version allows us to further test for bugs and UI/UX issues.
Give the user some time to navigate through the solution so they can advise us on any issues that need to be addressed. This helps us ensure the report has met all the user's requirements.
Important to be created to not only state why and how the solution was built, but also to help the user navigate the report, and understand what they can expect to gain from it.
The process begins and ends with the user. Stay focussed on what is important to them, the business needs, and how the solution being designed will help.
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