Let’s first look at a dashboard talking about premier league.
https://public.tableau.com/profile/cognitive.dissonance#!/vizhome/EnglishPremierLeague_0/EPLStory
- League table and Played Opponents In Prior Seasons: You can pick up any team in the table, it will show previous fixtures and upcoming fixtures, also you can see the comparison (avg. points, goals, goals against, winning%, draw% and loss% of playing against same teams in the league in recent eight seasons (It excludes teams promoted and regulated). Comparing same fixtures in prior season is a fair to see how a team is really getting worse or better in one way. The author has a distinctive idea. However, too much information to spread to audience. After I reviewed a couple of clubs, I failed to see the difference between clubs and the change of one club — Data does not change too much. Evidently, the author did not realize how the data is changing through the seasons. The tiny change proves the dashboard is a fail. It looks like the author give audience a maze to find a exit.
- Season Progress By Fixture: Comparison is a nice skill in showing dashboard. Here you can compare your club with League Winner, Championship League Line (Top 4 can get through Championship next season), Europa League Line (5th – 7th can get through Europa League) and Relegated Line. Also, it can select a few variables: points, goals conceded and away wins. Comparison by time could make it easy for audience to get the turning point. For example, if you choose Arsenal, and compare with League Winner, you can easily figure out before fixture 22, it’s pace was as good as League winner, but after that, they ran out. So it’s not painful as a previous dashboard. We do not need to find exit in maze. However, this is still not a perfect dashboard. The author only pick up three variables – Points, Away Wins and Goals Conceded. Does he want to spread a message: those are most important measurements? How about goals? Home Wins? Games against major clubs? Why he neglected those indicators? Incomplete information would probably bring incomplete conclusion.
- Final Standing and Points: It’s hard to guess what the author is going to claim. Maybe he wants to let us see the trend of points by times? No. The X-Axis is not year. It’s not a trend how a team is going to be. I am getting confused why the author picks up final standings and points as x and y axis. And the several trend lines (totally four lines) also confused me what the author is going to represent. This is not a maze, not too much data. But, this is a vague dashboard, the audience cannot get the clear claim from the author. So, do not take it for granted that your audience knows what you are thinking. Clearly give it out.
Let’s look at another dashboard taking about Premier League:
https://public.tableau.com/en-us/s/gallery/premier-league-15-16-so-far
- Who plays Where: If want to show a player’s activity zone, it would be better to show a zone, not one spot. Giving an average spot would lose other important information. Usually we could see a player’s hot spot: deeper the color, frequent the activity of a player. And that’s useful to do some analysis of a player: why he played more in that area? where is his favorite area? Especially when coach changed his role, for example from winger to midfielder. The “average” position is useless to get any conclusions.
- HOW DO THEY PLAY? The beautiful lines spread no information. The author gives too much information in a tiny tiny space. Lines across each other, it’s beautiful but totally none functional.
Finally let’s look at an interesting dashboard:
https://public.tableau.com/en-us/s/gallery/premier-league-ranking
It’s a beautiful chart. But, the author wants to say: Which teams unexpectedly snatch more than their fair share of points from sides above them? I did not find the answer. Do you want to count how much green cubes above a team, and divided by all cubes above a team? No one wants to do that. Besides, since Liverpool is in 3rd place, there’s less to compare. The better way is comparing a team’s winning% with top six and bottom six, then you would find the answer, in fact, Liverpool played best against top teams this season, but it’s hard to figure this out through the little cubes.