For both visualisations provided by this dashboard, the user profile is the same.
The user is the Head of Department for Humanities within a secondary school in England. They are in charge of History, Geography and Religious Education in the school – from Year 7 to Year 13.
The user therefore has numerous responsibilities not only to their classes, but also to the other members of teaching staff in each of the subjects for which they are responsible.
Thus, fast access to relevant information is critical to the success of the system. The user will not have time to sift through information and so, at-a-glance overviews must be provided.
Dashboard design is discussed by (Few 2006, Brath and Peters 2004) in detail. The focus of both is ensuring that data is appropriate and that the display of said data is in an appropriate format for the audience.
The goal for this visualisation is to show the user at a glance the number of field trips which have been approved and denied for each department.
The reason for this is that a Head of Department (HoD) will be in charge of multiple subjects – especially in Humanities where this system focuses. Therefore, simply having a text list with the number of approvals or denials may make comparison cumbersome for the user. (Maes 1995) discusses the idea of information overload.
This is would be a key problem as the HoD is someone who has a lot of responsibilities within the school and so needs to have quick access to the relevant information without wasting time.
As a result of this dashboard, the user is presented with the requested information in a format which makes the data easier to compare – either between departments or across years; or both. This means that the user will be able to make decision on allotment of field trips to various department as they will be able to compare where field trips have been approved – allowing for fair allotment of field trips.
Additionally, this information may then be easily communicated with Senior Leaders within the school when discussing if a course is meeting the learning objectives set by the exam board.
The goal for this visualisation is to allow the HoD to track spending on field trips effectively.
As previously mentioned, due to the responsibilities of the HoD, quick access to relevant information is critical. Therefore, the provision of the information in dashboard form will limit the amount of information retrieval required on the part of the HoD, which would otherwise be very time consuming – going back through financial document and collating the costs for each department.
The user is responsible for the budget and spending within the department and must offset this against the educational requirements provided by each of the field trips. Therefore, having quick access to comprehensive spending information for each department on field trips is key to making effective decisions.
This dashboard provides the user with a comparative overview of department spending and allows the user to compare spending of a department with its spending over the previous two years (showing three years total).
This therefore allows the user to quickly and accurately judge the amount of spending a department has used for field trips and will allow the user to make a quick, effective decision on the allotment of funding for other field trips which may be required in the future.
Brath, R. and Peters, M., 2004. Dashboard design: Why design is important. DM Direct, 85, 1011285-1011281.
Few, S., 2006. Information dashboard design: The effective visual communication of data. O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Maes, P., 1995. Agents that reduce work and information overload. In: Agents that reduce work and information overload Readings in human–computer interaction. Elsevier, pp. 811-821.