[This post is based on Givannah Noor‘s Master Information Science Thesis]
Dashboards are essential for data-driven decisions, but effective design, especially for smart building and energy management, is often overlooked. Givannah Noor’s thesis, “Brick by Brick: A Human-Centered Approach to Effective Dashboard Design for Smart Building and Energy Management,” tackles this gap head-on.
At Arnhems Buiten, an IoT pilot site and part of the HEDGE-IoT project, a specialized dashboard was developed to monitor various devices. Givannah took a human-centered approach, conducting stakeholder interviews to uncover pain points and key needs. These insights informed the development of a high-fidelity prototype. To that end, she conducted several interviews with stakeholders, developed personas, scenarios and prototypes.
The prototype was then evaluated with stakeholders using a think-aloud technique. The findings revealed that effective dashboard design goes beyond typical UI/UX principles, emphasizing the crucial role of storytelling and designing for predictive analytics. This research offers valuable insights for creating dashboards that truly meet the complex needs of smart building and energy management, and improve how we visualize future trends.
- All sources can be found on this Zenodo online appendix: https://zenodo.org/records/14678478
- A live version of the hi-fi prototype can be found here: https://www.figma.com/proto/uDu4BT5JZGKBW8j8Ra90Mv/HiFi-Master-Thesis-UI-Design?page-id=0%3A1&node-id=2-519&node-type=frame&viewport=304%2C76%2C0.23&t=vY8dYMPQH9C05un2-1&scaling=contain&content-scaling=fixed&starting-point-node-id=2%3A519
