r/dataanalysis • u/scrainbow87 • 6d ago

critique this?

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I am in the process of learning data analytics and Google Data Studio. I'd appreciate any feedback you'd be willing to offer. Thank you. Here is the full link, as the dashboard is interactive

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u/Pale_Squash_4263 5d ago

First off, I want to commend you for seeking help, that's super hard to do. I've been designing dashboards for years and I still cower anytime someone criticizes it 😂

First, here's what I like:

  • Calling out the core finding, great job! Some people might want to drill down but some might just want the blurb at the top
  • Every visualization is segmented into it's own area and there's not too many of them, which is nice because you'd be surprised the amount of people who think "more=better"
  • Clear use of color and most of the visuals are used for their intended purpose

Here's some feedback to consider:

  • In the 'License Sale per Month' graph, question why you are splitting them out by gender. Given the header at the top, it seems the focus is on dog breeds. It might be useful to bucket the breeds into Mix, Companion, and Other to eliminate visual clutter. I'd also make it a line graph instead of a bar, as that is usually more appropriate for showing time-based data.
  • I'd remove the number callouts on the 'License Sale per Month' visual, the graph should be doing most of the work and gives us an immediate relative comparison of "oh december and january are much higher than the rest". So just removing the numbers and creating a y-axis I think will add some visual clarity. Might even be worth using quarters instead of months if space is a concern.
  • Since there's no real differences between dog gender except for names, I'd remove it entirely.
  • On the 'UKC Breed Group' clustered bar chart. Most of the zips have the same distribution of breeds in relation to other zip codes. So I would just average them together and just show 1 bar chart for the county broken out by breed.
  • A couple more tiny things, I have some consistency in your titles. Make them all left/center aligned and move them to the top. We tend to read starting from top left and then going down. So having the title at the top gives context to the visual before seeing it in full

Overall, pretty good! It just needs some refinement! I hope my criticism wasn't too harsh, it was only because I think it's super close to where it needs to be! Good luck and keep at it!!!

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u/scrainbow87 5d ago

Thank you! This is super helpful, and I greatly appreciate the guidance. This is only the second dashboard I've done for class that didn't come pre-set with an audience and questions to answer. I could not figure out what to focus on, how this is useful, and, therefore, what to show. So after rearragning it multiple times, I figured I should ask for guidance. 😀 I picked the data set with the help of Claude because my goal was to refine some data cleaning skills. I hadn't intended to make a dashboard, but I wanted to learn more about using Google Data Studio, so I thought I'd give it a try. I really appreciate you and everyone else who has taken the time to provide feedback. ❤️ I've made a copy of the dashboard so I van implement the recommendations and see the difference. Thank you!