DASHBOARD EVALUATOR

• US 20120123989A1
• Filed: 11/23/2010
• Published: 05/17/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 11/15/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Business Objects Incorporated (SAP SE)
• Original Assignee: Business Objects Incorporated (SAP SE)
• Inventors: YU, Leo Chi-Lok, GONG, Zhiyong
• Granted Patent: US 8,595,173 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 706/47
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0639 Performance analysis of employees; Performance analysis of enterprise or organisation operations

Abstract

A dashboard evaluator is disclosed. The dashboard evaluator evaluates a dashboard design for its effectiveness in providing the information. The dashboard evaluator determines a level of compliance with dashboard design principles. The design principles may be tailored to a specific purpose and/or user.

Claims

1. A method of designing a dashboard comprising:

providing a dashboard design;

providing a set of best practice rules related to dashboard design principles; and

evaluating the dashboard design to determine a level of compliance with the best practice rules.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the set of best practice rules is divided into a plurality of categories for dashboard evaluation.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein a user may select one or more of the plurality of categories of best practice rules for dashboard evaluation.

4. The method of claim 2 wherein the plurality of categories comprise layout, color, font, interaction, and visualization or a combination thereof.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the set of best practice rules can be modified to provide a dynamic set of best practice rules.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the best practice rules may be selected for evaluation based on a specified purpose or a specified user.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the dashboard design comprises a multi-level tree structure.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein the dashboard design comprises a tree structure including three levels, wherein a top level comprises a dashboard level, an intermediate level comprises a container level and a bottom level comprises a component level.

9. The method of claim 7 wherein the evaluating of the dashboard design comprises evaluating the tree structure using a bottom-up approach.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein:

a best practice rule of the set of best practice rules includes a weight value based on an importance of the best practice rule; and

evaluating the dashboard design based on the best practice rules provides a compliance score to indicate the level of compliance.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein the set of best practice rules are contained in a knowledge base.

12. The method of claim 1 comprises providing one or more suggestions to change the dashboard design to improve the level of compliance according to the best practice rules.

13. The method of claim 12 comprises querying a user to accept or reject the one or more suggestions to change the dashboard design.

14. A dashboard evaluation system comprising:

a knowledge base module containing a set of best practice rules related to dashboard design principles;

an evaluation engine, wherein when the evaluation engine is invoked to evaluate a dashboard design, the evaluation engine receives the dashboard design and determines a level of compliance according to the set of best practice rules by the dashboard design; and

an evaluation result module for indicating the level of compliance according to the set of best practice rules by the dashboard design.

15. The dashboard evaluation system of claim 14 is integrated with a dashboard design system.

16. The dashboard evaluation system of claim 14 comprises a suggestion module for suggesting one or more modifications to improve the level of compliance according to the set of best practice rules.

17. The dashboard evaluation system of claim 14 comprises a conversion module for converting a graphical dashboard design into a dashboard model for evaluation by the evaluation engine.

18. A computer usable medium having a computer readable program code tangibly embodied therein, the computer readable program code adapted to be executed by a processor to implement a method for evaluating a dashboard design comprising:

a knowledge base containing a set of best practice rules related to dashboard design principles;

an evaluation engine for evaluating the dashboard design to determine a level of compliance with the best practice rules; and

an evaluation result module for displaying the level of compliance to the set of best practice rules by the dashboard design.

19. The computer usable medium of claim 18 wherein the computer readable program code is further adapted to implement a dashboard design application.

20. The computer usable medium of claim 18 comprises a conversion module adapted to convert a graphical dashboard design into a dashboard model for evaluation by the evaluation engine.