On the second day of dashboard week, we were tasked with designing dashboards/reports whilst considering several different accessibility requirements. The project that I was working on focused on creating a report in PowerBI that has been optimised for a screen reader and allows the user to evaluate which boroughs are underserved by step-free stations. This should be a borough-level summary dashboard with filters for key features such as toilets, lifts, and walking distance from attractions.
The Plan
- Double check that you have all the data you need for the report
- London Tube Stations (provided)
- Top London Attractions (provided)
- London Borough and Station Mapping (webscraped from London Fandom Wiki)
- Create a report in PowerBI including:
- Filters for borough, stations with or without accessible toilets, and stations with or without lifts
- KPIs containing key info: number of stations with step-free access, accessible facilities, average walking distance from attraction etc.
- Map of stations with step-free boarding
- Bar chart of distance from nearest station to attraction
- Number of stations within walking distance with step free access
Challenges
- For this project, I think I definitely overestimated how much I could get done in the small amount of time we were given (approximately 3/4 or so hours compared to the 6 hours we had yesterday). Namely, I got caught up in trying to create a very detailed map (3 layers: borough, attraction, and stations) despite the fact that I hadn’t done maps in PowerBI for almost a month. This led to me wasting a lot of time as I was basically going around in circles trying to get something done that wouldn’t have affected the usability of the report overall.
- Following on from the limited amount of time we had today, I ended up skipping the user stories and sketching stages of the project as I thought I couldn’t ‘waste’ time on them. This turned out to be a huge mistake as it led to me confusing myself later down the line when trying to create the charts without a clear goal or question in mind.
- There were some calculations that I had in mind (and could probably execute if I had created this report in Tableau) but couldn’t figure out how to create quickly using DAX. This, again, led to a lot of time working on things that I eventually didn’t even use in the report as they didn’t work as intended. I think I definitely need more practice on DAX in the future (especially since I plan to take the PowerBI Data Analyst Associate exam during my time on bench!).
- Although the process of entering the alt text and setting up the order of objects on the elements in PowerBI is relatively straightforward, it was quite frustrating to test it with the screen-reader (Microsoft Narrator) activated. This led to me being quite overstimulated at several parts of the day and having to take a few moments away from my work.
The Report
Here is the final report that I ended up creating in PowerBI:
It should be noted that for some reason unbeknownst to us at TIL, the screen reader does not appear to work (does not read out the alt text correctly etc.). However, when you go through the dashboard in the file directly, it works fine (Source? Just trust me).
Reflections
The second day of dashboard week was definitely a humbling experience.
- Working with PowerBI 2 days in a row has definitely put me out of my comfort zone. However, I do believe it is a valuable experience as it forces me to dive into a tool that I usually shy away from. In any case, practice makes perfect! It also helps that everybody at TIL is always really supportive so it isn’t the end of the world if one report I make isn’t up to my self-imposed standards.
- Aside from experience of building the report in PowerBI, I really enjoyed the session we had earlier in the day about what considerations we have to be aware of in our line of work. Again, I think I definitely need more practice designing in this area (preferably in Tableau in the future) but it was an interesting and different challenge from what we are usually given.
We can only go up from here! Bring on day 3!!