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The laws of shitty dashboards

attackwithnumbers.com

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Re: The laws of shitty dashboards

#71

Post by CCs »

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…

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

Re: The laws of shitty dashboards

#72

Post by joshmlewis »

ams6110 wrote: post #47
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.

It can also come on for no apparent reason. Mine is on right now. Gas cap is tight, car is running fine. Starts right up, runs smooth, power is good, fuel economy normal. So I'm not going to take it into the shop. In this day and age we can have something more informative than a check engine light. Tell me what's wrong, or at least have a "verbose" option I can enable that will let me see WTF it thinks the problem is…

Never ignore check engine lights even if everything is seemingly ok. It could be a lot of different things, some harmless but some not so much. If it's something with a sensor or other intake part, it could also be taking away your gas mileage.

Pro tip: As the others stated, they make good obd-2 readers for cheap and you can also go to many auto parts stores and they'll use theirs to give you the code print out for free.

Re: The laws of shitty dashboards

#74

Post by zobzu »

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 engine warning light is actually the shittiest thing on the dashboard. It can mean anywhere from 10 to 500 things, and nobody knows.

Result? Manufacturer manuals ALL OF THEM will tell you: "Just keep on driving, if it doesn't go off after a few days/a few drives bring the car to a mechanic."

Seriously, go get your manual and check what it says.

I mean, what the fuck? How the hell is that good in ANY way, shape or form?

Re: The laws of shitty dashboards

#75

Post by Gigablah »

nsmartt wrote: post #45
mehh wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well perhaps slagging off the work done by others in a domain he is not an expert in isn't a sensible approach to writing articles.

People don't need to be experts to recognize flaws in tools aimed at consumers.

Sure, you don't need to be an expert to have an opinion.

However I didn't come to Hacker News to read a stream of consciousness consisting of the word "shitty" and random screenshots.

Re: The laws of shitty dashboards

#76

Post by michaelbuckbee »

Dashboards are a visualization and interactive tool and like any tool have better and worse uses.

While the OP hits lots of points squarely, I strongly disagree about the "no one needs real time". In particular, any service that does onboarding or signups would be really well served to track new users through the getting started process.

I live in the custom dashboard that I built for my startup.

Screenshot: https://www.evernote.com/shard/s16/sh/c8cdeadc-643d-4028-b58...

It tracks every single signup from provisioning through to successful setup. It lets me easily see if people are flailing trying to get things working and if it looks like they are I send them a personal email like: "It looks like you might be having some issues with picking an email approver address, can I help?"

Having this real-time insight into customer issues lets me provide much better support and from an ROI basis is incredibly worthwhile.

The actual service: https://addons.herokuapp.com/expeditedssl

Re: The laws of shitty dashboards

#77

Post by endersshadow »

CCs wrote: post #71
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…

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 have the info from #'s 1 and 2 to actually take action? i.e.-Do you need to be inside the warehouse? On your phone? At your desk? Daily? Monthly? By the minute? Push?!

1 tells you what to put on the dashboard, 2 tells you how to prioritize the information (something that's important but not actionable will be something that can be found, but isn't prominent or on display above-the-fold), and 3 tells you the form factor/latency that's needed.

I've built a lot of dashboards over the years. Some have completely changed businesses. Some have languished in obscurity. Most are used fairly regularly (at least monthly), but don't actually add much value beyond time savings of having the numbers automated. The ones that really changed businesses and provided some benefit beyond just time savings have had clear answers to those three questions.

Re: The laws of shitty dashboards

#78

Post by XorNot »

userbinator wrote: post #60
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…

Finally, the tach can be used as a raw assessment of the load you're putting on an engine and you can optimize your driving habits according to that. Perfect example of this are the people who drive with an automatic and somehow manage to stay just below a shift point much of the time, meaning that the engine is at a higher RPM than it needs to be and could be consuming more fuel and wearing faster as a result.

...this doesn't really tally, especially in modern automatics with electronic gearboxes. Most engines are optimally efficient at some key number of revs, and the gearbox strives to keep the car in that range.

Re: The laws of shitty dashboards

#79

Post by gear54rus »

Srsly, this article seems littered with so many assumptions it's hard to decipher the actual point.

Tachometer has no use? Tell that to professional drivers.

Real time stats are worthless? Not unless you expect a spike in your server load (?) and need to react to it immediately.

If you can't find a use for some number, others may. That's what controls are for. You take the set of data your app (or whatever) has to offer, then you toss in some controls (your job is to make them intuitive so user does actually use them without tears) that can operate on and present the data and then everyone gets to choose what they see.

Bottom line is that the only way you can figure out that something is right for each individual is to give them a choice. The whole no one needs X seems far-fetched (to say the least). Sure you need to talk to users, but they most likely will express different opinions.

Also, don't build more dashboards. What? So we shouldn't improve on our mistakes, right? The concept is so bad that we shouldn't even try because no one (again, assumptions) can build good dashboard. C'mon..

Re: The laws of shitty dashboards

#80

Post by nsmartt »

Gigablah wrote: post #75
nsmartt wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People don't need to be experts to recognize flaws in tools aimed at consumers.

Sure, you don't need to be an expert to have an opinion. However I didn't come to Hacker News to read a stream of consciousness consisting of the word "shitty" and random screenshots.

That's a good reason to downvote or stop reading, but I question whether attacking the author for having the audacity to publish the post is a good move.
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