Chapter 63. How to Improve Your Dashboard Design with White Space
Another of my favorite dashboard elements is less tangible because...well, it’s sort of invisible. I’m talking about white space, or negative space; an important design element that you should consider in the context of your data visualization. Although there is no ink in white space, its use can make or break how your work is perceived and used.
White space helps you as the dashboard author prioritize content, helps your end user focus their attention during their analysis, and adds some professional design polish that will lend itself to better credibility with your audience. This chapter shows you three different tactics for improving the white space in your Tableau dashboards.
What Is White Space in Data Visualization?
Before I share my three tactics for implementing white space in your Tableau dashboards, look at this example to see the difference that this negative space can make. In this first image, I’ve used mostly default spacing, padding, and layout.
Note
Note this could be even worse because I left the nicely spaced navigation buttons and centered text in the date caption. Tableau also tries to help you with this very design aspect we’re discussing because, by default, it adds four pixels of padding around the vertical layout containers that are holding the individual sheets related to each KPI.
Still, ...
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