A new frontier in dashboard design: Evaluating an innovative meta‐modelling approach through expert insights

Abstract

[EN] Context: Data visualizations and dashboards are essential in disseminating informa-tion to broad audiences. However, designing these instruments is complex due to themultitude of involved factors. Theoretical frameworks are therefore critical to guidethe design and implementation of data visualizations.Objective: This article presents the approach used to pinpoint key features thatimpact the creation of information visualizations, organize these features using meta-modelling, and validate the final artefact through expert judgement.Method: Meta-modelling facilitates the distillation of characteristics and functionali-ties critical for the development of information systems. Utilizing this method, adashboard meta-model was constructed in preceding research, yielding a frameworkof abstract components and connections to delineate specific products. This meta-model serves as a robust tool for the automated generation of information visualiza-tions and dashboards. Nonetheless, to confirm its quality and efficacy, it underwent athorough quality assessment and expert evaluation to identify and address potentialshortcomings.Results: The validation process resulted in positive ratings and constructive feedbackto enhance the meta-model's present iteration. Experts mainly highlighted the meta-model's complexity and the clarity of certain entities, noting potential confusion fornon-experts.Conclusions: While the meta-model is confirmed to be a coherent and pertinent tool,it requires additional clarifications to simplify its complexity. Addressing this, graphi-cal interfaces have been developed to enable users to interact with the dashboardmeta-model—and to create dashboard instances—through straightforwardinteractions