Latest / The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers / Reality Bytes #19 – Data Storytellers w/ Ashwini Ingale

Transcript

Reality Bytes #19 – Data Storytellers w/ Ashwini Ingale · The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers

0:01
Welcome it, change Makers to the Deck Show with Tim Flower and Tom McGraw.
0:06
Let's get into it. Hello again, change Makers, Welcome back to
0:11
Reality Bites The Decks shows show within a show and it's not just for show
0:16
within a show today it's a reality bite special editions, so of the show
0:20
within a show within a show where we talk to fascinating next thinkers and we
0:25
get the lowdown. We go under the hood to hear all about product and
0:30
engineering and innovation at this wonderful company. And I have to say, this
0:34
is I think our third edition of this special edition, and I think it's
0:38
been going really really well. We keep on turning up just the most fascinating
0:42
interviewees and having the best conversation, so I'm really really happy with it so
0:47
far. Now it's time to welcome our special guest. She is Ashweene Engali.
0:52
She's a principal product designer for User Experience here at Next Think. Ashweenie,
0:56
Welcome to the show. Thank you, Thank you everyone, thanks for
0:59
having me on the show. I feel really honored and very excited to be
1:02
on the show. The honor and excitement is all us, I'm sure actually,
1:07
and I'm really really interested to talk to you. You have a fascinating
1:11
role Next Thing, and just a sort of general area of expertise, which
1:15
is I think just a perfect fit for reality buyers. So I guess a
1:19
good place to start would be to hear a little bit about that role and
1:23
a little bit about your background and how you came to specialize in this area.
1:29
Absolutely my pleasure, So Bill, just to give a bit of background
1:34
about me, Well, I have joined Next Thing about twenty one months back,
1:38
and my backgrounds have been in the field of design industry for about twenty
1:44
two years now this year. I love problem solving through design, and I
1:49
think I have since my childhood, have always been pretty much inclined towards design.
1:53
So I did my graduation in electronic science, but I then proceeded to
1:57
kind of do my masters in design, and I've always been kind of pretty
2:00
fascinated with the human psychology, how the mind works, how people react and
2:06
do certain things in a certain way. And I think that was one of
2:10
my, let's say, motivation to kind of, you know, use all
2:14
these areas of interest in one one job, and that is like designing products
2:19
for people, and that's how I'm here at Next Thing. And I actually
2:23
love being at Next Thing because, as I said earlier, Next Thing is
2:28
full of so many talented people. Every day you meet new people, you
2:32
meet a kind of you know, you understand a lot of things about the
2:35
product and also what's going on in the world, and every day is a
2:38
new learning really, so I think that's that's what I really enjoy working here.
2:44
It's a It's an intellectually vibrant company, no doubt about it. Yeah,
2:47
absolutely, and sort of the reasons it show works so well, I
2:51
think. So, I guess a good place to begin actuan years with core
2:53
principles, What in you of you makes a good or even great dashboard?
3:00
Well, I think it's a very very interesting question, I think in if
3:05
we want to simplify that answer in much more, you know, for a
3:07
layment to understand, I think a good and a great dashboard is about storytelling.
3:14
You know, how well you tell the story of the data using the
3:16
data basically through your visualizations, and how you actually take the consumer of the
3:22
dashboard or the viewer or the user of the dashboard through that journey of storytelling
3:27
and help them quickly support the problems that they need to look for and actually
3:31
help them see, diagnose, and again troubleshoot. Maybe you know that you
3:35
can help them drill down through different interactive elements and then diagnose and solve the
3:42
problem quickly as quickly as they can. Basically, So I think that's in
3:45
a nutshell, I think a great dashboard is basically it also involves, you
3:50
know, building the right great dashboard, using right visualization types, having a
3:54
little progressive layout which actually takes the user on that little journey for that moment.
4:00
And also we have to use quite clear and intuitive design with the right
4:04
sort of you know, content in there in the form of text or labels
4:09
or visual elements, colors, et cetera. So I think that that's that's
4:13
the idea of a great dashboard. In my opinion, that's so cool.
4:16
I mean, talk to me. I've got to drill down on one of
4:18
the first points, Sash, because it interests me so much. But the
4:21
notion of storytelling, and I guess what you're dealing in is a very specific
4:27
type of visual storytelling. What are the principles of good storytelling in this kind
4:32
of format for you? I think it all, Um, there are a
4:38
few steps we can take a couple of steps back before we actually understand how
4:42
a good storytelling is kind of you know, progressed. We have to first
4:47
understand when when whoever it is building a dashboard, I think it is really
4:50
important for them to understand why am I building the dashboard? So what is
4:55
the purpose of the dashboard? Who is it? You know, who am
4:58
I designing it for? And who are going to be the end users?
5:01
What are their roles, what are their goals, et cetera. And also
5:04
to understand the user's problem, what the problem that they're trying to solve through
5:09
this dashboard. To get a clear understanding about that problem is kind of a
5:15
key element in building the right dashboard, and that's where the storytelling comes in
5:18
pictures. So, for example, if we are trying to show a dashboard
5:23
where you know, we want to show how many freezes and crashes have happened
5:27
within you know, within your organization for the past seven days, then we
5:30
actually start by actually showing you know, how these are you know, so
5:34
many devices are being used, and those devices are using these versions of you
5:40
know, particular applications, and then we actually start showing that data. Okay,
5:45
you know, these many or this percentage of users or devices face the
5:49
crashes and freezes within this amount of time, and we start showing that data.
5:54
So we build up that story and we actually show you make use of
5:57
right visualizations and again colors. For example, if something is going wrong,
6:01
we show it in the red colors, so the users are quickly able to
6:05
spot that on the dashboard easily, and then again use the drill down method
6:10
to see what exactly has gone wrong in this particular area or for these devices,
6:15
and then they can actually drill down and investigate further to find out the
6:17
right problem and solve it. That's great. Actually, there must be just
6:23
so many sort of technical visual navigation challenges that you face around building these,
6:29
specifically in the area of decks, where my assumption is there's an unusually large
6:34
amount of data for you to have to kind of sift through, navigate and
6:40
present in this specific field. I mean, what are the biggest challenges specific
6:45
to decks in your view when it comes to sort of dashboard new X design.
6:49
Yeah, absolutely so. I think dex dashboards are also complete visibility into
6:57
our employee's world, you know, and the way they with their technology.
7:00
So I think it's it's it's a very vast area because you know, we
7:04
now these days, especially after COVID, people have started working remotely from literally
7:10
any corner of the world, and you know, for for a particular organization,
7:13
so you know, people are geographically literally spread apart and using different set
7:17
of devices with different sort of connection problems and issues, etc. And also
7:24
different hierarchies. And the deck stash boards are basically, you know, they
7:29
give a complete visibility and clarity to you know, what your employees are facing
7:32
on a day to day basis or literally on you know, on hourly basis
7:35
for that matter, in some cases. So and I think from organizational point
7:42
of view, improving decks is basically investing in your people really and that actually
7:46
in turn gives you more productivity for the organization. So it's obviously it's a
7:50
win win situation for the employees as well as the business. So the deck
7:55
stashboards are one of the key key areas where we can get into we can
8:00
dive into how what sort of problems are employees are facing on a day to
8:03
day basis and try to solve them. I think dex dashboards I wouldn't call
8:09
them challenges, but the aspect that it covers in Dex dashboard area is quite
8:15
vast, so it actually also tells you about the employees interaction with their technology
8:20
or with their voices in the form of you know, it gives you the
8:24
quality of that. It tells you the ease of use, the satisfaction rate,
8:28
the reliability, inclusivity, accessibility, and many other aspects that are a
8:33
part of the end user experience and overall the satisfaction of the employee. And
8:37
I think these are key areas which contribute to write Dex dashboard. I think
8:45
that's in my opinion. So something I'm really curious about when we're talking about
8:48
what makes these types of dashboards so complex is the cashtom dashboard feature. And
8:54
I'm curious, what do you think are some of the challenges to helping the
9:00
users of Castom dashboards to build their own and making those effective. Yeah.
9:07
Absolutely, And I think the custom dashboards is and will be now called live
9:11
dashboards also, so basically live dashboards is and like is a tool which we
9:18
have kind of created to build dashboards for our users and they can basically build
9:22
their dashboards on their own. And I think what we know is basically we
9:28
know that not every dashboard creator is a designer, so we try to help
9:31
them by giving them some sort of preset preset settings. Let's let's say when
9:39
they're building their dashboard, so we have a built in layout manager that already
9:43
kind of takes care of how the layout will be shown, which widgets,
9:46
which widget will fit, you know, how well it fits within that dashboard
9:52
area. The users or the creators don't have to really worry about whether it's
9:56
whether I have to put a few pixels left or right, whether I to
10:00
kind of, you know, nudge it a little bit to kind of align
10:01
it with the other widgets. So all that is being taken care of in
10:05
the background. So that's that's pretty useful for the users. And they can
10:09
also you know, edit, delete, move widgets around the layout. So
10:11
that that kind of flexibility or the ownership is given to the dashboard creators,
10:16
so they kind of own that tool in a way, and they also feel
10:20
kind of empowered by by by having these facilities to create build a great dashboard.
10:26
On top of that, I think it's not just about it's not just
10:31
about these kind of this tool. A few other things what have done for
10:35
our consumers is have created a quick ux design guideline for dashboard creators again you
10:41
know, taking into consideration that everyone may not actually know principles design principles,
10:46
and if we follow them then it's going to kind of, you know,
10:48
the output is going to be a great dashboard at the end of the day.
10:52
So some high level tips which I have included in the guidelines are you
10:56
know, again, as I mentioned earlier, understand the purpose of the dashboard,
10:58
why do we need this, what problem is it going to solve?
11:01
And who are my end users are they are they of specific persona and how
11:07
will they consume that data? For example, if an analyst is going to
11:11
be using the dashboard, they may just want to they want to see the
11:15
deeper insights, but maybe a high level operations manager may just want to see
11:18
the bigger picture. So I think those kind of you know, points a
11:22
creator has to take into consideration. I think these are the challenges we initially
11:26
faced that we noticed that people were not aware of these things, and then
11:31
after we kind of you know, took them through these design guidelines, so
11:33
you know, our internal users as well as external customers. Then people started
11:37
kind of you know, imbibing these values in their design. You know,
11:41
in their kind of regular design elements really and that that kind of helped them
11:46
significantly. There are some more granular level tips as well which were a part
11:50
of this guideline, such as and most of these are really we think that
11:56
okay, this is really a common sense, but we completely a that when
12:01
you're coming from a space of a design, when you are actually a designer
12:03
yourself, you may kind of understand these things quite clearly, but for the
12:09
person who's creating the dashboard, these things may not be that obvious. So
12:13
I think it was it was a conscious effort to kind of add these points
12:16
into into these guidelines. You know. Some of these key points are like,
12:20
understand that every inch of your you know, realistate that you are being
12:24
given on the dashboard palette is important, so use it wisely. Don't overuse
12:31
you know, widgets, basically, that's that's the idea. No your audience
12:35
and design or lay out the page in keeping in mind their goals, build
12:41
a storyline. As I said before, one of the key things which I
12:45
feel was quite useful to our customers was start drawing the dashboards on paper first.
12:52
And that tip has been kind of you know, that has helped me
12:54
a lot as well. So I think that is a very very useful tip
12:58
to a lot of our dashboard creators. That actually saves time of you know,
13:03
just constantly nudging and moving widgets around until you get the desired layout.
13:07
That also helps you organize the data quicker. So I things, starting on
13:11
paper is also a great idea. They don't have to be you know,
13:15
perfectly looking dashboards, just some rough sketches here and there would work great.
13:20
Basically, Also keep in mind the information architecture and the layout flow and choose
13:26
the right type of widgets for the right information because sometimes the same data can
13:31
be actually shown in three different type of charts. But understand what is the
13:35
most impactful chart that is going to help your users see the problem quickly and
13:39
solve it. So these are the key things which which they have to keep
13:43
in mind, which I have kind of added in my design guideline sessions and
13:46
I kind of you know, was helping our internal and external customers to go
13:52
through these these points some more points where less is more. So don't overuse
13:56
and don't overdo the chart, the use of you of charts or the text,
14:01
et cetera. Avoid elements that don't communicate any data to the user every
14:05
time. Whichever widget type you use on the dashboard, make sure that each
14:09
and every widget type is tying back to the purpose of the dashboard, so
14:13
nothing is you know, nothing is unnecessary basically on that dashboard. A few
14:20
other things to maintain about the content is maintain a visual and content hierarchy,
14:24
use short and precise labels, use logical labels for dashboard names, et cetera.
14:31
Make sure that you're using consistent units across the dashboard. There are some
14:35
features like usage of tabs and filters, that is that's a part of the
14:39
dashboard tool, so make sure that you use those features quite wisely. Again,
14:45
use your tabs to organize the content so that the information architecture and the
14:50
flow of the data is much more easier to understand. And also with respect
14:54
to text, make sure there are no typos because that's not the that doesn't
15:01
quite reflect grate. So I think these are the key things which we have
15:05
for you, which I have added in the design guidelines, and we have
15:07
seen some very good response from our customers, so for that these are great
15:13
tips. Thank you so much, Ashweenie, and I know I definitely benefit
15:18
from sketching things out on paper. That's one of my favorite tips as well.
15:22
I actually had a follow up question for you, which is, what
15:26
do you say to people who do want to do more, who want to
15:31
customize the visual design even further. What's your advice to folks like that?
15:35
Oh, do you mean in terms of dashboards the customizing of the jot nights?
15:41
So for example, with life dashboards specifically, I think there's two kinds
15:45
of people, right There's people who are a little bit intimidated maybe and want
15:48
to use what's there, and then there are the people who want to go
15:52
even further, really want to customize every visual detail, and sometimes, like
16:00
you were saying, you know less, it's more so it can be challenging
16:03
to figure out when is it helpful to really use visual elements to create things
16:07
like visual hierarchy versus when is it better to not use visual elements to the
16:15
point where it obscures the data. Absolutely, it's a great question. So
16:18
I think one of the key features which we already have in the dashboards is
16:23
grouping of the content. And when we are talking about the visual hierarchy or
16:29
using using the right sort of elements and not overdoing it grouping comes. Grouping
16:36
works great because we have the option. Now we have the ability where people
16:40
can group the relevant data or relevant bidgets together. Maybe they can have a
16:45
common title for that, and that actually just shows you know, that just
16:48
appears in a kind of common white box. Let's put it that way.
16:52
And that actually helps the consumer of the dashboard to understand the data much more
17:00
quickly because it actually separates that out that particular group of widgets. It separates
17:04
that out from the other rest of the widgets, and it's much more I
17:10
mean, it's much lesser cognitive load on the user's brain who is consuming that
17:15
data. They can easily see that, Okay, these visual elements are you
17:18
know, they are kind of closer to each other. They are put in
17:22
a particular box or a group. It has got a common heading. So
17:25
you are actually able to kind of organize your content much more, you know,
17:30
smoothly on your on your dashboard, and it just helps the end user
17:34
to again, you know, differentiate between the types of contents, the groups
17:37
of the widgets, and again consume that data much more smoothly and easily and
17:41
more intuitively. Really with respect to visual hierarchy, again, the same thing
17:47
applies when we are grouping content together. You know, as I said,
17:51
I have added a particular title or the heading widget on that group, and
17:55
then I added some sub widgets to that group. Subtle visual changes automatically happen
18:00
in the dashboard that the users may not notice, but that actually creates a
18:04
very big positive impact on the user's brain that it actually quickly recognizes that this
18:11
group of fidgets is one entity, and it actually helps them again, you
18:15
know, use and consume that data quickly and smoothly. I hope that answers
18:19
your question. Orient Yeah, absolutely, I know you and I could probably
18:23
talk about live dashboards forever. The LB super interested to hear your thoughts on
18:30
sort of EUX more generally, because you do you have this great perspective.
18:34
What are some of the main trends that you've observed in the development of few
18:40
X doing that career. I think the interesting thing is over the last you
18:44
know, over the last few years or decades, I would say, you
18:47
know, a lot of there have been a lot of changes and trends that
18:48
are coming. A lot of trends are actually coming and going as well,
18:52
but few things are staying with us, Like you know, and they're progressing
18:56
and enhancing, being advanced. I think some of the key things that are
19:00
facting the design, the design process or the design ideations really also the use
19:04
of hardware technologies because you know, people, you know, we have phones,
19:08
we have you know, variable you know, technology, technology, and
19:12
we have a lot of other things. So I think the things that are
19:17
changing in the UX, these things are being connected to each other. So
19:19
whatever I can see on my obviously laptop, I can see on my phone
19:22
or my watch and so on. So FORWATH basically, so these these uh
19:27
you know, hardware changes or developments are also impacting the software and also in
19:33
turn they are impacting the UX because it's all about users, right, The
19:37
users are using all these devices with different technology, you know, and then
19:42
that's going to definitely impact the design part of it as well. You know
19:45
a lot of things like there are personalized experiences obviously, you know, they're
19:51
highly interactive data visualization techniques now, you know, lightmode dark moode has become
19:55
so common we don't even know that it wasn't there in a few years ago.
19:59
And like people are actually pretty much demanding about all these things. The
20:03
accessibility is one of the key things that is being kind of you know,
20:06
and people we assume that accessibility has to be taken care of in each piece
20:11
of design. There are micro interactions, there are three D designs, you
20:15
know, there are of course like AI generated contend to go a little out
20:19
of the way, augmented reality, et cetera. So a lot of these
20:23
trends are impacting the designs, the designing, you know, ideations, etc.
20:30
For the users because the users are consuming this information on other platforms,
20:34
So eventually they would expect that smooth and clear experience or that more personalized experience
20:41
or interconnected experience between these let's say devices quite often. And that's how I
20:48
think this is one of the trends I have observed in the last you know,
20:52
few years, I guess, and that actually just you know, enriches
20:56
the experience for the users really and users, I mean, Yeshmuni, I
21:00
have a question for you, and you kind of hinted at it earlier,
21:03
but I was actually curious for you know, B two C products like if
21:10
you're in UX design, like I'm just on our phone with all of our
21:12
applications that we use, do you see those influencing the work that you do
21:18
at Nextinc. For B to B products. You know, I know you
21:21
have a very technical audience of users that you help out. But I'm curious
21:25
if there's any crossover between those two areas. I think so, So,
21:30
is it more like the actual end user, the consumer experience as well as
21:33
the B two B experience and the kind of correlation between that, right,
21:37
yeah, correct, So, like when I open up my phone and I'm
21:40
using social media app like Twitter, I'm curious the UX designer that put the
21:45
work into that, do they influence some of the things that you're trying to
21:49
do when it comes to creating custom dashboards or helping people think through problems graphically
21:57
or you know, figure out figuring out the best use of the tool.
22:03
Absolutely, I think that's that's a great question, and it does definitely impact
22:08
you know, our thinking as well, because see, at the end of
22:11
the day, our users are also the users of these kind of you know,
22:15
these different technologies and different devices and different applications by themselves as well.
22:22
So the more we are used to using these things around, like social media
22:27
for example, or other other products or applications that we use commonly amongst ourselves,
22:33
I think these the interactions that we kind of use, the interactions we
22:38
have with those products. Definitely, that smoothness and that kind of you know
22:44
efficiency the users would eventually expect from our products as well. So overall,
22:49
it does definitely kind of impact the design, the technical part of design when
22:56
we are taking into consideration that because at the end of the day, the
23:00
end users are human beings. They are the same people who are using these
23:03
other technologies, other devices, other applications who will be using our application.
23:08
So eventually, definitely that they would expect that you know, intuitivity and ease
23:15
of use in our products as well. So it does definitely impact the design
23:18
as well. And that's how we enhance and we that's how we actually upgrade
23:22
our UX every now and then. So that is how the UX designs and
23:26
the guidelines and the you know, the visual interactions, everything gets enhanced in
23:33
like every version or every release for that matter. That's excellent. It makes
23:37
a lot of sense to me. Um I was curious to made with the
23:41
final question here to wrap up. You talked a lot about dashboards. What
23:45
do you think is going to happen in the future to dashboards, What technologies
23:48
might impact, what we'll see in the coming years. Well interesting, I
23:55
think you know, from from from where I from where I'm at the moment,
24:00
and where we see the world is going. And I think the options
24:03
are endless. But to just sum up a few, I think what what
24:08
I would expect for dashboards, not just here but anywhere in the world is
24:11
basically to show more and more complex data, with more and more sophisticated and
24:15
simplistic designs to interact with. Again, you know, greater integration with other
24:21
software platforms or programs is something you know, I would see, We already
24:26
see that that's happening in a lot of places. And again, you know,
24:30
more user friendly features with different devices. And I can also think of,
24:34
you know, more use of the artificial intelligence and machine learning through through
24:41
all these you know, areas, and greater focus on real time data.
24:44
More and more real time data would be kind of you know, added in
24:48
the dashboards. I think that's that's those are the few things which I can
24:52
think of right now. And I think, as I said, the options
24:56
and the the avenues are endless. That has been so interesting, actually,
25:03
and I think it's really struck me listening to you just how much of a
25:07
role ux designers play in modern world, right like we all of us spend
25:12
so much time on apps, so much time looking at things which are basically
25:15
sifting through data and telling us stories about data, and the truth is we
25:21
often don't think about the people behind it, who are designing it. So
25:23
it's been absolutely wonderful talking to you and hearing a bit about that process.
25:27
Do you feel actually needs you feel like a bit of an unsung hero in
25:30
this world or you're quite satisfied with being being in the background making everything work.
25:37
Absolutely, to be honest with you, I love problem solving and that
25:40
actually, you know, it's it's like that gives me, let's say,
25:44
okay, when I say that, okay, amazing, or I have solved
25:47
that problem for my you know, even if ten percent users are happy with
25:51
that particular solution, it gives you an amazing satisfaction. And I think that's
25:56
what matters at the end of the day, and that's that's what keeps you
25:57
going. Really certainly certainly sounds that you've found a fantastic vocation. And I
26:03
know our next think is very very lucky to have you. So look,
26:07
it's been We're very lucky to have you too. Thank you so much for
26:10
coming on the show. It's been really lovely speaking to you today. Thank
26:12
you so much. Thanks for having me on the show, and it was
26:15
lovely having the conversation with you all brilliant come back again. Thanks that's Renie.
26:19
Cheers, bye bye. To make sure that you never miss an episode,
26:25
subscribe to the show in an Apple podcast, Spotify your favorite podcast player,
26:29
and if you're listening on Apple podcasts, make sure to leave a rating
26:33
at the show. Just have the number of stars you think the podcast deserves.
26:37
If you like to learn more about how next Thing can help you improve
26:40
your digital employee experience, head over to nextthink dot com. Thank you so
26:44
much for listening. Until next time.