Design and Prototypical Implementation of a Dashboard System for Visualizing Semi-Structured Data in a Traceable Way

Abstract

Dashboard systems and spreadsheet applications range among the most popular tools to support decision making, allowing users to aggregate, visualize, and share data within minutes. In today's organizations, not only the amount, but also the complexity of data is continuously growing. As the information demands of stakeholders diverge and the relationships between data objects grow more complicated, it becomes increasingly difficult to analyze the data flow in corporate environments.

In an effort to empower end-users to understand and analyze the networks spanned by the data assets, visualizations and people in their organizations, this thesis proposes a modular dashboard architecture that actively supports data flow analysis, and facilitates the use of today's web-based visualization toolkits.

Following the design science approach, the work revolves around a brief screening of related literature and prevalent industry solutions, the development of a suitable system architecture, and an evaluation of a prototypical implementation in cooperation with two industry partners.

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