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The laws of shitty dashboards

attackwithnumbers.com

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Re: The laws of shitty dashboards

#101

Post by dredmorbius »

vkjv wrote: post #67
dredmorbius wrote: post #42

Not all dashboards are shitty or useless. New Relic comes to mind, and it's a tool I've found hugely useful. While it doesn't instrument full system monitoring (though it's getting there), it provides numerous system and site metrics, monitoring, and a useful degree of logging, that's hugely useful. One of the biggest gains for us came when it implemented JVM heap monitoring. This is possible through jconsole, but jc…

Interesting, because we use New Relic extensively, and I was just thinking of it as the prime example of, "what the hell is the purpose of all these dashboards and what do they mean?"

Some of the presentations don't do much. The ability to drill in (varies by your platform) and find hot threads and methods is really useful in tuning.

Other data are more useful for the marketing folks (e.g., geocoded data), though they can also point out abuse or other issues.

Re: The laws of shitty dashboards

#102

Post by tbyehl »

aunty_helen wrote: post #68
cvburgess wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not true. The check engine light can come on in some cars if the gas cap is not screwed on tight enough - easily fixed yet treated as serious as a major engine malfunction.

Ok perhaps the example was a little off due to design abuse from some manufacturers. For example (I think) Alfa Romeo put the gas light on if the fuel cap is loose/missing. This is more of an appropriate design. (Unless it's a diesel then it really is a problem) The point that I was trying to address is that if there is a critical warning that you can't do anything about, there's no more info needed than 'stop and se…

Manufacturers do not abuse the Malfunction Indicator Lamp. Its _legislated_ purpose is to alert the driver to issues which could compromise the emissions control systems of a vehicle. A loose gas cap causes a pressure leak in the EVAP system which captures fuel vapors from the gas tank.

Re: The laws of shitty dashboards

#103

Post by travem »

hvass wrote: post #16

I recommend two resources on creating dashboards, both from very experienced practitioners: 1) http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/digital-dashboards-strategic-... 2) Information Dashboard Design by Stephen Few - http://www.amazon.ca/Information-Dashboard-Design-Effective-...

I can second the recommendation for the Information Dashboard Design book. It provides some extremely clear guidance and recommendations. Thanks for the pointer to the first resource, I'll definitely check that out.

Re: The laws of shitty dashboards

#104

Post by caw »

icelancer wrote: post #95
aunty_helen wrote: post #19

>They also employ UX techniques that dates from a time where the only UI component you can use was a light bulb. If that red thing is critical, can’t you tell me right away what it means? This annoyed me a little bit. A check engine light is the perfect component for what it does. If it's on it means that something may be seriously wrong and that you're probably too stupid or ill-equipped to fix it. If it was somethi…

The light is ridiculous. It should read the code in models that have a text display, instead of needing to go to Autozone and rent an OBD code reader. It's bullshit. Tell me the error up front so I can Google it.

The problem is that the OBD codes aren't always specific. Sometimes they're specific enough to diagnose the problem, sometimes they're not, which is why you still need someone with auto expertise to correctly identify the problem. Most shops will warranty against unneeded repairs as a result of reading the code by virtue of buying their $99 "Check Engine Light Service" (whereas Autozone's reader is free to borrow). I've been in the situation where a shop made a check engine light repair that didn't fix the problem, so they made another $500 repair to actually remedy the problem.

Re: The laws of shitty dashboards

#105

Post by jschwartzi »

coldtea wrote: post #87
jschwartzi wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also a great design because it needs to be highly reliable, and lights are probably the simplest things you can apply power to to generate a notification. Also the note about the tachometer struck me as a little odd. The tachometer can tell you if your vehicle is running at a high idle, if the bumps you're feeling are misfires or the road, and it can also tell you whether you've accidentally left your vehicle in…

> It's also a great design because it needs to be highly reliable, and lights are probably the simplest things you can apply power to to generate a notification. Only that's a BS reason, because you could always have the "simple reliable" light AND a more detailed explanation in a panel next to it.

Sure, but you'd still have the light for reliability.

Re: The laws of shitty dashboards

#106

Post by luos »

je42 wrote: post #11
je42 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you release a new version of a game and you notice your arpdau tanks. ;)

Or try to instrument any analytics - and wait to verify they show up in the dashboard correctly.

Or you are a small business owner who just likes to watch what the users are doing in realtime, for fun. Like my mom :)

Re: The laws of shitty dashboards

#107

Post by VLM »

Nobody mentioned astrology or dilution of responsibility?

Dashboards are an astrological tool. Here is an elaborate and complicated process you don't understand to generate numbers that are devoid of meaning, to dilute responsibility when you make a decision that turns out to be wrong.

The article misses this point entirely. A good dashboard from the end user perspective can be used as numerical backup for any arbitrary decision at any time. The author just doesn't get it. Thats why the author is confused by the "just keep adding stuff until I can always use it to justify whatever I want to do".

This is how dashboards are used in practice, this is their actual reason for existing. This is why money is spent on them.

The article is like a debunking of astrology, "well see here, based on the gravitational constant and the distance to this orange vs venus, the square results in ..." and the boss replys with "shut up I don't care about reasons I decided to go to war with eastasia and we've always been at war with eastasia and my astrologer always had my back, and apparently you don't, so lets discuss the effect of all this gravitational formula stuff on your career prospects vs backing me up which you're paid as a yes man to do..."

Re: The laws of shitty dashboards

#108

Post by treehau5 »

caw wrote: post #104
icelancer wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The light is ridiculous. It should read the code in models that have a text display, instead of needing to go to Autozone and rent an OBD code reader. It's bullshit. Tell me the error up front so I can Google it.

The problem is that the OBD codes aren't always specific. Sometimes they're specific enough to diagnose the problem, sometimes they're not, which is why you still need someone with auto expertise to correctly identify the problem. Most shops will warranty against unneeded repairs as a result of reading the code by virtue of buying their $99 "Check Engine Light Service" (whereas Autozone's reader is free to borrow). I…

The most unspecific OBD code, IMO, is any EVAP code. Seriously could be 100 things, from as simple as a gas cap not being screwed on, to a tiny leak in a gas line, to a bad 02 sensor, to a dead spark plug, leak or rot in the fuel line, bad fuel pump, dirty fuel filter.... ect ect ect....

Re: The laws of shitty dashboards

#109

Post by VLM »

endersshadow wrote: post #77
CCs wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is, that the attitude was "throwing numbers together and calling it a dashboard is bad, ask the users what they actually want".

I'd go quite a bit further. Most users have no idea what they actually want. I think the key to building a dashboard is to ask three questions: 1. How do you measure success? -- or -- How will you know that life is good? How do you know that the sky is falling? 2. If you see this number (something specified in #1) go above or below a certain value, what are you going to do? Anything? 3. When and where do you need to…

I would add a 4th also based on extensive experience, can the users do anything at all about the situation? Being able to order someone to generate numbers doesn't mean the recipients are permitted or capable of doing anything at all. It shows they "care" but a random number generator is more effective WRT dev time than trying to generate meaningful numbers.

I've seen dashboards get tied up in internal politics. The list of recipients of "quality" dashboard is a line in the sand vs the "quantity" dashboard political group. The recipient list and who controls it is far more important than the data contained in the report. Whats important is who reports to who, and why.

A fifth question is does anyone in the chain of command even remotely understand basic statistics like error bars and standard deviations? If the only purpose of the report is to loudly trumpet when pet division B beats divisions A and C thru G, then a very high std deviation / error rate makes stack ranking give the predetermined "correct" result more often. I've seen this personally in "metrics as a teambuilding exercise" where whats actually produced is a weekly report that every division will get to stack ranking win at least once a quarter to meet the Morale Improvement goal on some exec's goal list. Again a PRNG gives better data than real data, if the goal is to give everyone a participation trophy.

Re: The laws of shitty dashboards

#110

Post by ThomPete »

userbinator wrote: post #44

There seems to be an attitude throughout the article of "users are too stupid to understand dashboards", and maybe this is true to some extent, but that's really not a good reason to dumb-down interfaces (which seems to be what it's calling for.) E.g. You have no idea what your users will decide based on the data you are showing them. But you somehow assume your users will know. My eternal gratitude to anyone who can…

The point is that numbers in themselves means nothing to most people and are actually not actionable.

The purpose of a dashboard is to give instant feedback on something that requires it. (Driving a car, airplane, nuclear reactor, space station, server load) i.e. if something is wrong you should be able to see it right away so you can take action.

The dashboards we see today are more like vanity boards which feed our need for new information but doesn't really serve any other purpose.

A really good read on the subject is this one

http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/smart-analytics-dashboard-mod...

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