A Process Model for Dashboard Onboarding

Abstract

Dashboards are used ubiquitously to gain and present insights into data by means of interactive visualizations. To bridge the gap between non-expert dashboard users and potentially complex datasets and/or visualizations, a variety of onboarding strategies are employed, including videos, narration, and interactive tutorials. We propose a process model for dashboard onboarding that formalizes and unifies such diverse onboarding strategies. Our model introduces the onboarding loop alongside the dashboard usage loop. Unpacking the onboarding loop reveals how each onboarding strategy combines selected building blocks of the dashboard with an onboarding narrative. Specific means are applied to this narration sequence for onboarding, which results in onboarding artifacts that are presented to the user via an interface. We concretize these concepts by showing how our process model can be used to describe a selection of real-world onboarding examples. Finally, we discuss how our model can serve as an actionable blueprint for developing new onboarding systems.