Framework: TO019 – to019_0400

Part of series: TO019 Tool 019 – Segmented Dial Gauges

Series Keywords: dial gauge, needle gauge, gage, dashboard, quantitative, qualitative; range, increments, spin, panel, control, volume, slider, non-data-driven values

Dashboards are used to show a point-in-time snapshot of a company's health and status. Dashboards can be comprised of data-driven charts, qualitative charts, maps with color coding to show rankings for regions, or gauges, like those in this series. The gauges offered in this series are segmented so you can add your own numbers. There gauges have from 1 to 15 segments.

The segments can be colored as you choose. The downloads are colored with green/yellow/red, from left to right. The green on the left signifies that it is better to have fewer. If you want a gauge to show that greater is better, you can either group all of the components of the gauge that you wish to use and flip it horizontally and then ungroup again. Alternatively, you can recolor the outer segments of the dial so that it goes from red (lower left) to green (lower right).

You can use these gauges in place of moons (harvey balls) or other data-driven or qualitative charts. You can add as many needles as you need and give them different colors. This way you can show two measurements on the same gauge (use a legend to distinguish between the two gauges). The example for this series uses gauges without number values, although they can certainly be added, either incrementally and associated with the segments of the gauge or as a beginning and an ending number.

Important: the EMF download is the gauge only; the PowerPoint download is formatted so that the needle can be manually spun or animated to spin. The needle is grouped with a dot with no fill and no line color, which makes it easy to manually spin the needle in position or animate. The download has a small amount of instruction included, which you can just delete after you read it.

Refer to the tutorial for more formatting tips, and download the animated example if you wish to see how you might animate the needle(s).