This week at the Data School we had teaching week. Where each of the DSers took a topic that they need improvement in and then taught the topic to the rest of the group. I had the topic of designing for mobile. Here are some of the tips i found while researching the topic.
My 10 Tips
- Keep it Lean. Nothing is worse the a slow loading mobile app. Keep complex calculations to a minimum and avoid using data sets that are too big.
- Disable map pan and zoom. When trying navigate through a mobile dashboard if you don’t disable pan and zoom, whenever a map is selected it will move around on the map instead.
- Avoid using charts with scrolling bars. Similar to the map is you have a scroll bar it will have to scroll through the entire chart before moving on to the next element.
- Favor Insights over data exploration. Space is limited on a mobile. Try to have the most important information readily available with the least amount of noise.
- Keep filters to a minimum (Most places suggested no more than three). Filters can clutter up the view and be hard to interact with.
- Customize for your audience. Try to make dashboards targeted at specific people. You can also use tableau server views to target the dashboards to be pre filtered and straight to the insights
- Design vertical layouts. Most users interact with their mobiles vertically. Unless designing horizontal for a specific reason it best to build it vertically.
- Avoid using tool-tips. Mobile device cannot hove over objects. Tool-tips can also take up a large amount of screen real estate.
- Test on a variety of devices. You can simulate devices using Chromes device toolbar
- Choose simple views. Try to keep the charts simple and easy to read
Those are my tips for designing dashboards for mobile.