reporting – paulvanderlaken.com

My colleague prof. Jack van Wijk pointed me towards these great guidelines by Deloitte on how to design an effective dashboard.

Click to access deloitte-nl-data-analytics-10-commandments-effective-dashboarding.pdf

Some of these rules are more generally applicable to data visualization. Yet, the Deloitte 10 commandments form a good checklist when designing a dashboard.

Here’s my interpretation of the 10 rules:

Know your message or goal
Choose the chart that conveys your message best
Use a grid to bring order to your dashboard
Use color only to highlight and draw attention
Remove unneccessary elements
Avoid information overload
Design for ease of use
Text is as important as charts
Design for multiple devices (desktop, tablet, mobile, …)
Recycle good designs (by others)

In terms of recycling the good work by others operating in the data visualization field, check out:

I just love how Deloitte uses example visualizations to help convey what makes a good (dashboard) chart:

Alyssa Columbus published maintains this GitHub repository with a great tutorial on how to move from Excel to R. Very useful for beginning useRs, the repository’s tutorial includes a translation table between Excel and R functions:

Excel Formula	R Function	Type
ABS	`abs`	Arithmetic
ADDRESS	`assign`	Essentials
AND	`&`,`&&`,`all`	Boolean
AVERAGE, AVG, AVERAGEIF	`mean`	Arithmetic
BETADIST	`pbeta`	Statistics
BETAINV	`qbeta`	Statistics
BINOMDIST	`pbinom` when cumulative,`dbinom` when not	Statistics
CEILING	`ceiling`	Arithmetic
CELL	`str` has the same idea	Essentials
CHIDIST, CHISQDIST	`pchisq`	Statistics
CHIINV, CHISQINV	`qchisq`	Statistics
CHITEST	`chisq.test`	Statistics
CHOOSE	`switch`	Essentials
CLEAN	`gsub`	Text
COLS, COLUMNS	`ncol`	Essentials
COLUMN	`col`,`:`,`seq`	Essentials
COMBIN	`choose`	Essentals
CONCATENATE	`paste`	Text
CONFIDENCE	`-qnorm(alpha/2)*std/sqrt(n)`	Statistics
CORREL	`cor`	Statistics
COUNT, COUNTIF	`length`	Arithmetic
COVAR	`cov`	Statistics
CRITBINOM	`qbinom`	Statistics
DELTA	`identical`	Boolean
EXACT	`==`	Boolean
EXP	`exp`	Arithmetic
EXPONDIST	`pexp` when cumulative,`dexp` when not	Statistics
FACT	`factorial`	Arithmetic
FACTDOUBLE	`dfactorial` in the `phangorn` package	Arithmetic
FDIST	`pf`	Statistics
FIND	`regexpr`,`grepl`,`grep`	Text
FINV	`qf`	Statistics
FISHER	`atanh`	Arithmetic
FISHERINV	`tanh`	Arithmetic
FIXED	`format`,`sprintf`,`formatC`	Essentials
FLOOR	`floor`	Arithmetic
FORECAST	`predict` on an `lm` object	Statistics
FREQUENCY	`cut`,`table`	Arithmetic
FTEST	`var.test`	Statistics
GAMMADIST	`pgamma` if last argument T,`dgamma` if last arg. F	Statistics
GAMMAINV	`qgamma`	Statistics
GAMMALN	`lgamma`	Statistics
GAUSS	`pnorm(x) - 0.5`	Statistics
GCD	`gcd`	Arithmetic
GEOMEAN	`exp(mean(log(x)))`	Arithmetic
GESTEP	`>=`	Boolean
HARMEAN	`harmonic.mean` in the `psych` package	Arithmetic
HLOOKUP	`match`,`merge`	Essentials
HYPGEOMDIST	`dhyper`	Statistics
IF	`if`,`ifelse`	Essentials
IFERROR	`try`,`tryCatch`	Essentials
INDEX	`x[y,z]`	Essentials
INDIRECT	`get`	Essentials
INT	`as.integer`(not for negative numbers),`floor`	Arithmetic
INTERCEPT	first element of `coef` of an `lm` object	Statistics
ISLOGICAL	`is.logical`	Boolean
ISNA	`is.na`	Boolean
ISNUMBER	`is.numeric`	Boolean
ISTEXT	`is.character`	Boolean
KURT	`kurtosis` in the `moments` package	Statistics
LARGE	`sort`	Statistics
LCM	`scm` in the `schoolmath` package	Arithmetic
LEFT	`substr`	Text
LEN, LENGTH	`nchar`	Text
LINEST	`lm`	Statistics
LN, LOG	`log`	Arithmetic
LOG10	`log10`	Arithmetic
LOGINV	`qlnorm`	Statistics
LOGNORMDIST	`plnorm`	Statistics
LOWER	`tolower`	Text
MATCH	`match`,`which`	Essentials
MAX	`max` (sometimes `pmax`)	Arithmetic
MDETERM	`det`	Arithmetic
MEDIAN	`median`	Arithmetic
MID	`substr`	Text
MIN	`min` (sometimes `pmin`)	Arithmetic
MINVERSE	`solve`	Arithmetic
MMULT	`%*%`	Arithmetic
MOD	`%%`	Arithmetic
MODE	`as.numeric(names(which.max(table(x))))`	Arithmetic
MUNIT	`diag`	Arithmetic
N	`as.numeric`	Arithmetic
NEGBINOMDIST	`dnbinom`	Statistics
NORMDIST, NORMSDIST	`pnorm` when cumulative,`dnorm` when not	Statistics
NORMINV, NORMSINV	`qnorm`	Statistics
NOT	`!`	Boolean
NOW	`date`,`Sys.time`	Essentials
OR	`	`,`
PEARSON	`cor`	Statistics
PERCENTILE	`quantile`	Statistics
PERCENTRANK	`ecdf`	Statistics
PERMUT	`function(n,k) {choose(n,k)*factorial(k)}`	Arithmetic
PERMUTATIONA	`n^k`	Arithmetic
PHI	`dnorm`	Statistics
POISSON	`ppois` when cumulatic,`dpois` when not	Statistics
POWER	`^`	Arithmetic
PROB	`ecdf`	Statistics
PRODUCT	`prod`	Arithmetic
PROPER	`toupper`	Text
QUARTILE	`quantile`	Arithmetic
QUOTIENT	`%/%`	Arithmetic
RAND	`runif`	Arithmetic
RANDBETWEEN	`sample`	Arithmetic
RANK	`rank`	Essentials
REPLACE	`sub`,`gsub`	Text
REPT	`rep` and `paste` or `paste0`	Text
RIGHT	`substring`	Text
ROUND	`round`	Arithmetic
ROUNDDOWN	`floor`	Arithmetic
ROUNDUP	`ceiling`	Arithmetic
ROW	`row`,`:`,`seq`	Essentials
ROWS	`nrow`	Essentials
RSQ	`summary` of `lm` object	Statistics
SEARCH	`regexpr`,`grep`	Text
SIGN	`sign`	Arithmetic
SKEW	`skewness` in the `moments` package	Statistics
SLOPE	in `coef` of `lm` object	Statistics
SMALL	`sort`	Arithmetic
SQRT	`sqrt`	Arithmetic
STANDARDIZE	`scale`	Statitics
STD, STDEV	`sd`	Arithmetic
STEYX	`predict` on an `lm` object	Statistics
STRING	`format`,`sprintf`,`formatC`	Text
SUBSTITUTE	`sub`,`gsub`,`paste`	Essentials
SUM, SUMIF	`sum`	Arithmetic
SUMPRODUCT	`crossprod`	Arithmetic
TDIST	`pt`	Statistics
TEXT	`format`,`sprintf`,`formatC`	Text
TINV	`abs(qt(x/2,data))`	Statistics
TODAY	`Sys.Date`	Essentials
TRANSPOSE	`t`	Arithmetic
TREND	`fitted` of an `lm` object	Statistics
TRIM	`sub`	Essentials
TRIMMEAN	`mean(x,trim=tr/2)`	Arithmetic
TRUNC	`trunc`	Essentials
TTEST	`t.test`	Statistics
TYPE	`typeof`,`mode`,`class`	Essentials
UPPER	`toupper`	Text
VALUE	`as.numeric`	Arithmetic
VAR	`var`	Essentials
VLOOKUP	`match`,`merge`	Essentials
WEEKDAY	`weekdays`	Essentials
WEIBULL	`pweibull` when cumulative,`dweibull` when not	Statistics
ZTEST	`pnorm`	Statistics