5S Dashboard Design Principles for Self - Service Business Intelligence Tool Users

Non–information technology (IT) professionals and nonexpert casual users are increasingly adopting self - service business intelligence (SSBI) tools (such as Tableau, Qlik


Introduction
In the age of big data, people are cognitively overloaded with vast amounts of information. Business intelligence and analytics, particularly data visualization dashboards, are solutions to present insightful information to target users efficiently [1]. A dashboard is defined by Few as "a visual display of the most important information needed to achieve one or more objectives; consolidated and arranged on a single screen so the information can be monitored at a glance" [2,3]. Dashboards are for not only professional situations but also personal and recreational purposes.
For example, Shneiderman et al. stated that casual users at home need to navigate thousands of movies to find the perfect entertainment for a night in, browse hundreds of social media updates daily to keep abreast of their circle of friends, and scan through thousands of product reviews to find the right toaster to buy [5]. This development has been termed as "casual visualization," which involves nonexpert users [6].
In response to the aforementioned difficulties and trends, self-service business intelligence (SSBI) has been developed. User-friendly SSBI tools (such as Tableau, Qlik, and Power BI) can help non-IT professionals and nonexpert casual users to perform custom analytics and to derive actionable information from large amounts of data without involving IT experts [7][8][9].
Because SSBI tools are increasingly used by various target audiences, we aimed to derive dashboard design principles to present insightful information to target users efficiently. This paper is structured as follows. Section 2 presents the research approach.
Section 3 provides the recommended design principles from the literature. Section 4 illustrates dashboards created by a focus group applying the recommended principles by using data regarding quality of diabetes care. In Section 5, 5S dashboard design principles are proposed. Finally, the benefits and challenges of 5S principles are discussed, and conclusions are drawn in Section 6.

Research Approach
The research approach is based on the four main steps illustrated in Figure 1.

Few's Highlighting and Organizing Objective
Derived from the concept of the data-ink ratio, Few recommended two principles for highlighting objectives: "reducing the non-data ink" and "enhancing the data ink" [2,3,11].
To reduce nondata ink, we must first remove unnecessary nondata ink and then deemphasize and regularize the remaining nondata ink. Removing unnecessary nondata ink begins by asking the following question regarding each visual component: "would the data suffer any loss of meaning or impact if this was eliminated?" If not, then remove it. If the ink does not support the message, it does not serve the purpose of communication. Nondata items, consistent with their supporting role, should stand out from the background sufficiently to serve their purpose but not so much that they draw attention to themselves. This can be achieved through the use of thin lines and soft, neutral colors (e.g., light gray).
Enhancing data ink involves two steps. The first step is to remove unnecessary data ink; the second is to emphasize the most crucial data ink. Do not remove anything crucial, but ensure anything peripheral to the interests and purposes of readers is removed.
When we arrange information on a dashboard, we do it consciously to tell a story. What should I say first? What should I save for the last? What should emphasize more than the rest? The answers to these questions take on the form of visual attributes designed to accomplish the following: • Group (i.e., segment information into meaningful sections) • Prioritize (i.e., rank information by importance) • Sequence (i.e., provide direction for the order in which information should be read)

Shneiderman's Visual Information Seeking Mantra
Shneiderman proposed a useful starting point for designing an advanced graphical user interface, the "Visual Information Seeking Mantra: Overview first, zoom and filter, then details-on-demand" [12]. He proposed a task taxonomy for information visualization.
Tasks are task-domain information actions that users wish to perform. The seven highest order taxa of abstraction tasks are as follows.
• Overview: gain an overview of the entire collection • Zoom: zoom in on items of interest

Proposing a New Design Principle Framework
When applying the design principles suggested in the literature, the participants of the focus group found some principles lacking from a domain knowledge perspective. After several rounds of discussion, the focus group proposed a new design principle framework. The focus group suggested using an easily memorized term for the dashboard design principle framework. Mimicking the 5S workplace organization method based on five Japanese words (seiri, "sort"; seiton, "set in order"; seiso, "shine"; seiketsu, "standardize"; and shitsuke, "sustain") [51], the focus group proposed a 5S dashboard design principle framework of seeing both the forest and trees, simplicity through self-selection, simplicity through significance, simplicity through synthesis, and storytelling. The following describes the 5S principles with some illustrations.

Principle 1: Seeing Both the Forest and Trees
This principle is derived from Few's organizing objective (group, prioritize, or sequence) and Data/task abstraction To help users to easily recognize quality, the four quality indicator variables on quantitative scales were converted to an ordinal scale (good quality = 3, fair quality = 2, and poor quality = 1). We also summed the score of the four indicators into one total quality score (12 is the highest and 3 is the lowest).   States [52,53].
In the traffic light chart (Figure 4), the focus group used the color orange to denote hospitals with poor-quality diabetes care (consider some of the readers are color blindness, we changed red into orange and green into blue). Coincidently, the four hospitals with an orange light according to the trichotomy method ( Figure   4A) were the same as those identified through statistical testing ( Figure 4B), thus providing stronger evidence for decision-making. (B) three-color scheme based on 95% confidence intervals from statistical testing.  [54].
In this study, the focus group used a simple approach (i.e., summation). They assigned a score of 3 for blue lights (good quality), 2 for yellow lights (fair quality), and 1 for orange lights (poor quality). They subsequently totaled the scores for the four process indicators to obtain a total quality score; 12 was the highest, and 3 was the lowest. According to the trichotomy method, the total quality scores ranged from 5 to 12 (Figure 4 A), whereas according to the statistical testing method, they ranged from 4 to 12 (Figure 4 B).
We followed the principle of seeing both the forest and trees when designing the traffic light chart (Figure 4), presenting not only the total quality score but also the score for each process indicator. We noted that RH1 and RH3 hospitals had blue lights for the total quality score, but they had orange lights for eye fundus examination (Figure 4 A), thus providing both overall (forest) and specific (tree) information for decision makers.

Discussion
After reviewing the literature on dashboard design principles and applying these recommended principles to create performance dashboards for quality of diabetes care for the Health Bureau of the Taichung City government, the focus group modified these principles and proposed the memorable 5S principles: 1) seeing both the forest and trees, 2) simplicity through self-selection, 3) simplicity through significance, 4) simplicity through synthesis, and 5) storytelling. The 5S principles provide a helpful guide for non-IT professionals and nonexpert casual users to design effective dashboards by adopting SSBI tools.
itself, in addition to having storytelling ability and excellent communication skills [55]. However, we already found theoretical saturation of most principles (i.e., many principles repeated in different articles). Second, principles always require a balance between generalizability and specificity. The focus group strove to find this balance. Third, the data we used in this study were relatively simple. However, we believe that many problems encountered by health care workers in their daily decision-making are similar in different professional fields. The 5S principles could still be applied to other domains.
In conclusion, the 5S dashboard design principles are easily memorized and practical principles and enable non-IT professionals and nonexpert casual users to design insightful dashboards efficiently by using SSBI tools.