Cloudscape Design System
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  • Foundation
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Cloudscape Design System
  • Get started
  • Foundation
  • Components
  • Patterns
  • Demos
  • GitHub 
  • About

Patterns


  • General

    • Actions
      • Global actions
      • In-context actions
    • Announcing new features
    • Announcing beta and preview features
    • Communicating unsaved changes
    • Data visualization
      • Chart metric drill down
    • Density settings
    • Disabled and read-only states
    • Drag-and-drop
    • Errors
      • Error messages
      • Validation
    • Empty states
    • Feedback mechanisms
    • Filtering patterns
      • Saved filter sets
      • Filter persistence in collection views
    • Hero header
    • Help system
    • Image magnifier
    • Loading and refreshing
    • Onboarding
      • Hands-on tutorials
    • Selection in forms
    • Service navigation
      • Side navigation
      • Top navigation
    • Service Dashboard
      • Static dashboard
      • Configurable dashboard
      • Dashboard items
    • Secondary panels
    • Timestamps
    • User feedback

  • Generative AI patterns

    • Pattern abstraction
    • Generative AI chat
    • Ingress
    • Generative AI output label
    • Generative AI loading states
    • Progressive steps

  • Resource management

    • Create resource
      • Multipage create
      • Single page create
      • Sub resource create
    • Delete patterns
      • One-click delete
      • Delete with simple confirmation
      • Delete with additional confirmation
    • Edit resource
      • Page edit
      • Inline edit
      • Attribute editing
    • View resources
      • Table view
      • Card view
      • Split view
      • Table with expandable rows
    • Resource details
      • Details page
      • Details page with tabs
      • Details page as a hub
  1. Cloudscape Design System
    • Patterns
    • General: Service Dashboard
    • Dashboard items
    1. Cloudscape Design System
    2. Patterns
    3. General: Service Dashboard
    4. Dashboard items

    Dashboard items

    Dashboard items are self contained UI elements that address specific customer needs, such as navigating to a resource, monitor resources status, or viewing a costs summary.

    Published: March 10, 2023
    View demo
    Configurable dashboard demo

    On this page

    1. Building blocks
    2. Key UX concepts
    3. General guidelines
    4. Related patterns

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    Building blocks

    Dashboard items can be featured in three locations: Static dashboard, configurable dashboard and in an item palette.

    Image showing a dashboard item. Highlighting its main featuresImage showing a dashboard item. Highlighting its main features

    B.
    Header

    Use the header to display the title of the dashboard item. You can include information and actions that apply to the entire content of the item, such as description, counter, or an info link.

    B.
    Actions - optional

    Primary action
    Provide only one primary action to your users. Actions can be connected to the dashboard item content, for example, to request a limit increase, or to navigate across consoles, for example, to view resources in another console.

    Additional actions
    You can group additional actions under an icon dropdown button.

    Use the following order:

    1. Preferences as the first item.

    2. Other actions that are required, in order of usage after Preferences and before Remove.

    3. Remove as the last item in the list.

    D.
    Preferences - optional

    Use preferences to allow users to view and change their display configuration. User configurations in preferences can affect the following settings:

    • Which content areas are visible or set to hidden. For example, hiding a chart when it’s paired with a table or a list.

    • Which items in a list are visible or set to hidden. For example, hiding an entry from a list that shows the total spend for a product.

    • Which table columns are visible or set to hidden. For example, hiding columns that show the date of a resource being created.

    E.
    Filters - optional

    Filtering helps users with multiple data options to quickly find one or several resources. The entire content areas of the items are used as a base for the filter.

    Combining filters when using multiple visualization types
    If you are combining multiple data visualizations in one board item, you can include a global filter with additional child filters. For example, filtering multiple visualizations by a date range and then filtering a singular visualization by a specific resource type.

    F.
    Content

    Use the middle area of the item to display data for your specific user needs. These can be providing context to the top page insights, or allowing a user to complete quick actions. By default, show widget content that shows the optimal data based on user requirements. Data can be visualized with a chart, table, or list, and these can be combined.

    The following are examples of content types:

    Chart
    By using charts, users can compare data series throughout a period of time, against other data series, or to quickly parse a specific value of high importance.

    • For information about creating charts, refer to the data visualization guidelines and our

      data visualization components.

    Table
    A collection of data in a tabular format that users can explore in-depth. This format is effective for quickly identifying categories, comparing values in a large dataset, or accessing detail pages.

    List
    A list is a number of consecutive items displayed one below the other.

    G.
    View all - optional

    View all link that takes the user to a new page with the complete resource list.

    Key UX concepts

    Control over item configuration

    Static
    Static dashboard items have defined content. These are containers with no user control to move or change the content.

    Configurable
    You can give users control over an items content, size, and location.

    • Drag and drop: Users can move an item to adjust its prominence or group items to better view and monitor associated content.

    • Resize action: Users can change the size of an item to reveal or hide data or give content more prominence on a page.

    • Preferences: Users can focus on the data that is important to them by showing and hiding content.

    For more information refer to the configurable dashboard pattern, and board items.

    Sizes

    Component sizes
    When creating the structure and positioning of the dashboard items throughout the page, use the following sizes to define how to best represent the data living in your dashboard page.

    When providing configuration to the user, design your dashboard item content to show all content as a default.

    • Small

      Useful to represent simple content that can be scanned quickly. Often related to one data type only that conveys additional, but not critical, data to users.

      For example:

      • A chart to represent billing data.

      • A key-value pair for the service health status.

      Layout:

      • Static: 3 columns in the 12-columns grid

      • Configurable: 1 column in the 4-columns grid

    • Medium/Large

      Useful to display content that needs to convey multiple types of information, where users can pause their attention to perform mental actions, such as comparison of data.

      For example:

      • A chart representing trend of resources usage over a period of time.

      • A table listing current alarms that need user intervention.

      Medium Layout:

      • Static: 6 columns in the 12-columns grid

      • Configurable: 2 column in the 4-columns grid

      Large Layout:

      • Static: 9 columns in the 12-columns grid

      • Configurable: 3 column in the 4-columns grid

    • Extra large

      These span across the page and are useful to display content that needs to catch users attention, or to represent data visualizations that require a complex user interaction.

      For example:

      • An overview on the key metrics of a service, like running instances, volumes, security groups and load balancers.

      • A chart where the user needs to be aware of events taking place in small time intervals, and perform filtering to narrow down the represented data.

      Extra large Layout:

      • Static: 12 columns in the 12-columns grid

      • Configurable: 4 column in the 4-columns grid

    • Responsiveness

      The content area should respond to become a 1 column grid on smaller breakpoint with content spanning 100% of the available width. More information on responsive behavior can be found in Responsive design.

    • Height

      Static: The height of dashboard items are defined by its content.

      Configurable: The height of dashboard items has predefined height increments based on the grid. When adding content select the height that best fits the content and set as a default. This is then adjustable by the user. See board item and the dashboard demo for more information.

      Palette item: The height of these are defined by its content.

    Minimize visual noise

    One item should serve one definitive user goal. Don’t include so much data so that it’s not easily scannable. Avoid displaying long lists of data such as logs. Also, the level of interactivity should be kept to a minimum. For example, use a details page for complex filtering on a table or a graph instead of on a dashboard. Keep in mind that the user goal is to have a quick overview, so provide access to detail pages or cross-service navigation where the user can explore further.

    Combining data visualizations
    You can combine widgets to create a more powerful comparison of data. For example, showing the resource cost over time in a chart alongside account breakdown of costs in a table. When combining visualizations, don’t overwhelm the user. Keep this to a maximum of two different visualization types.

    General guidelines

    Do

    • Keep functionality and noise to a minimum within the content area of an item.
    • Place common and repeated actions into the icon button dropdown. For example: Remove and Preferences
    • Place the palette item this inside an item palette.

    Don't

    • Don’t combine more than two different types of data visualization. This creates clutter and visual noise that can distract your users from achieving their goal. For example, don’t combine a table, chart, and a list.
    • Avoid displaying long lists of data such as logs, instead use a separate page for this.
    • Don’t add actions that are better suited to perform within the context of your console, such as advance data queries or resource creation.
    • Don’t allow users to show and hide item content unless you are building a configurable dashboard.
    • Don't include actions in an palette item header.
    • Don't include any real content within an item featured in the palette item.

    Related patterns

    Board item

    A board item is a self-contained user interface (UI) element living within a board.

    Container

    With the container, you can present a group of pieces of content, indicating that the items are related. For example, a table is a type of container.

    Service dashboards

    A dashboard page presents at-a-glance information about service and resource status. Users can monitor this information and act upon it quickly.

    Table view

    The table view pattern is a collection of resources in a tabular format. It's effective for quickly identifying categories or comparing values in a large text and numerical data set.

    Data visualization

    Data visualization is a graphic representation of information and quantitative data intended to quickly and clearly convey meaning.

    Configurable dashboard

    Gives control to the user to show/hide, delete, move, change the size of, and add items to a dashboard.

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