I designed the Industrial Dashboard, later the Visual Industrial Dashboard, for Euromonitor International in 2011, as a dynamic, data-driven web application for subscribing clients. I worked closely with our team’s developer to see it developed and launched.
The piece provides an overview of a country’s economy using ISIC codes, utilising a different methodology from Euromonitor International’s consumer good market data. The application handles three distinct views. The Across Countries view shows a particular segment of an economy via a tree map and how the segment compared across 18 countries, the selected being amongst the world’s largest economies. I designed this view in particular for growth, because while the dataset would start at 18 countries the dataset was set to expand. At last count, the design now accommodates 68 countries.
The second view shows the segment of one country’s economy against all other segments. Depending on the country, this data might extend down four levels that we termed division, section, industry, and category. The tree map here made use of hierarchy to show the relationship between children and parent, but more importantly the size and growth of an economic segment. The larger the rectangle, the larger the share (a key provides a sense of scale) while colour denotes growth. The darker the blue, the better the growth. And because especially at the fourth level the squares became incredibly small, I included a function to allow the tree map to expand and displace the market statistics on the right-hand side.
The third view highlights the flow of a supply chain, from initial sources to ultimate buyers. Due to the more complicated nature of the flow, I included language atop the display to guide users along the path with the costs ultimately turning into market size at the selected segment for the selected country. Unfortunately, a database update a few years after launch disconnected the links between segments and the design presently shows only the first level of connectivity. The bottom of the view includes a breadcrumb trail to help users return to one part of the tree should they fall too far down the rabbit hole.
The Across Countries view compares a segment of an economy against its same segment in all other available countries, now nearing 70
The Across Categories view compares the size and growth a segment within a country to all other segments in the same country
The expanded view of Across Categories allows the user to better see the smaller segments, especially when all four levels are displayed
The Buyer Supplier view shows the costs that go into a segment for a country and then into what segments the chosen one supplies