Datasheet

You can leverage these priority zones to promote or demote certain compo-

nents based on significance. If one of the charts on your dashboard warrants

special focus, you can simply place that chart in a region of prominence.

Note that surrounding colors, borders, fonts, and other formatting can affect

the viewing patterns of your readers, de-emphasizing a previously high

prominence region.

Format numbers effectively

There will undoubtedly be lots of numbers in your dashboards. Some of them

will be in charts, and others will be in tables. Remember that every piece of

information on your dashboard should have a reason for being there. It’s

important that you format your numbers effectively to allow your users to

understand the information they represent without confusion or hindrance.

Here are some guidelines to keep in mind when formatting the numbers in

your dashboards and reports:

 Always use commas to make numbers easier to read. For example,

instead of 2345, show 2,345.

 Only use decimal places if that level of precision is required. For

instance, there’s rarely benefit for showing the decimal places in a

dollar amount, such as $123.45. Likewise in percentages, use only the

minimum number of decimals required to represent the data effectively.

For example instead of 43.21%, you may be able to get away with 43%.

 Only use the dollar symbol when you need to clarify that you’re

referring to monetary values. If you have a chart or table that contains

all revenue values, and there’s a label clearly stating this, you can save

rooms and pixels by leaving out the dollar symbol.

 Format very large numbers to the thousands or millions place. For

instance, instead of displaying 16,906,714, you can format the number to

read 17M.

You can easily format large numbers in Excel by using the Format Cells dialog

box, shown in Figure 1-5. Here, you can specify a custom number format by

selecting Custom in the Category list and entering the desired number format

code in the Type input box. In Figure 1-5, the format code 0,,"M" ensures the

numbers are formatted to millions with an M appendage.

Part I: Making the Move to Dashboards

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