Today, we will take a detour to world-wide web and learn how we can improve our dashboards, reports, presentations or workbooks by using one of the ideas, called as Golden Triangle.
Golden what?!?
Website designers all over the world are always asking,
- What areas of my webpage get most attention?
- Should I get another cup of coffee?!?
During one such coffee breaks, they had a break!. Eye-tracking.
Eye-tracking is used to learn where our eyes focus when we look at a website. Imagine your eyes as spray paint cans. Now, when you look at something, your eyes would spray paint, at the point of focus. So, when you look at a webpage, at the end of first few seconds, your eyes would have painted something like this, (source: Google)
You see the triangle? that is what web-designers call as Golden Triangle – the place where your users attention will be.
How do we apply golden triangle to our Reports, Dashboards or Workbook Models?
Simple! Just place the important content, metrics, messages or charts at the top-left corner. A few more important stuff can be placed at top-right too.
Based on my extensive eye-tracking studies conducted on my own eyes, I present you the first-ever Excel eye-tracking results.
What is the best place to show important info on reports and dashboards?
In my opinion, top-left corner & top rows are good place to show summaries & important info. Whenever I followed this rules, my clients loved the output.
What about you? What is the best place for key information according to you? Do you agree with the golden triangle idea? Share your ideas & insights thru comments.
Resources on Dashboard / Charting Best Practices:
If you make a lot of reports, charts or presentations, then go thru these additional material to learn more.
- Articles on Visualization Principles
- Selecting right chart for your data & needs
- 5 Rules for making better charts
PS: Further eye-tracking studies have revealed that you will never click here if you do not want to learn more about making awesome charts.
