Dashboard Improvement 2: Widget Groups

[dszidi]

We've been collecting feedback about what people would like to see on the dashboard. Other than the GPU widget, we have had some very good suggestions for some new data to expose. Unfortunately there wasn't a single item that stood out as universally desired so we tried to take a different approach. Our existing widgets take a somewhat generalist approach to what they display, and we realize they will not meet everybody's needs. We also wanted any new additions to the widget collection to live together with the current offerings so we want to introduce a new paradigm called Widget Groups

Some details about Widget Groups

• Every widget is now contained in a Widget Group
• Widget Groups are the same size as our current widget size
• Widget Groups can be a group of one or a group of many
• Current widgets are considered a group of one
• A group of many will contain combination of new half and quarter sized widgets
• New half and quarter sized widgets will be user customizable
• When engaging drag and drop on the page, only the Widget Groups will be draggable. Placement of the individual widgets in the group can be done via the Widget Group Editor

Size and Scale

Wireframes Disclaimer:
Designs in blue are wireframes that are meant to be low fidelity sketches. They will not be pixel perfect and may not be as visually precise as the final product in the presentation. It may also make use of placeholders for things like images and graphs. Please focus on the content and treat them as drafts.

To illustrate size and scope Here is a screen showing Widget Groups that contain 1, 3 and 4 widgets. Note that all groups take up the same amount of space. (The dashed line is there to illustrate the boundary of the group)

Contents of 25% and 50% Widgets

Quarter and Half sized widgets will be user configurable. They can have one of three content types.

• Datapoint
• Chart
• Image

As illustrated in the following designs, the datapoint widget type will have a label and a value. The chart widget type will have a gauge for the quarter sized widgets and a line graph for the half sized widgets. The image widget type will provide preset items like icons and logos.

Full Context

The following wireframe illustrates what these groups will look like on the page. The current grid layout remains in tact so our current full size widgets can coexist with the new custom widgets. We have also consolidated the global page actions to a single "Configure" button. I will post more information about changes to the configuration process in a separate thread.