Building Dashboards with Story and Flow

Nicely done 12 page pdf from Tableau on building Dashboards.

 ... Making Flow Happen:
How to Build Dashboards That Persuade, Inform and Engage

In data visualization, flow is crucial. Your audience should smoothly absorb and use the information in a dashboard without distractions or turbulence. Lack of flow means lack of communication, which  means failure.

Psychologist Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi has studied flow extensively. Czikszentmihalyi and other researchers have found that flow is correlated with happiness, creativity, and productivity. People experience flow when their skills are engaged and they’re being challenged just the right amount. The experience is not too challenging or too easy: flow is a just-right, Goldilocks state of being.

So how do you create flow for an audience? By tailoring the presentation of data to that audience. If you focus on the skills, motivations, and needs of an audience, you’ll have a better chance of creating a positive experience of flow with your dashboards. And by creating that flow, you’ll be able to persuade, inform, and engage. ... "