In what situation do you use speedometer ?

[#1]

In what situation do you use speedometer ?

[MK_QSL]

when yon want to show

1) % comparison of two years or growth of current year vs last year

2) % target achieved

3) Normal Sales Target achieved for given forecast or any other measure

[Gysbert_Wassenaar]

Only when the customer really, really insists. The speedometer is a space consuming monster that can always be replaced with a better chart or even with a textbox.

[#4]

Hello Gysbert, can you talk more details about it? Why is the speedometer a space consuming monster? Is that mean the speedometer of Qlikview would use much more system resources that other charts?

[Gysbert_Wassenaar]

A speedometer will consume a lot of screen space. A simple bar chart can express the same information in much less space. That leaves you more space for other chart so your dashboard can answer more questions with the same amount of screen real estate. Read Stephen Few's book Information Dashboard Design.

[#6]

Speedometer makes % vivid, not like the boring figure in the text box. However, its drawback is also vivid, which makes users' observation biased.

Just like Manish said, speedometer can be used to compare percentage between current year and last year, but what if the gap is little with time dimensions' change, your eyes may be difficult to track that.(definitely, you can add text on speedometer, but it loses the simplicity and attractiveness, isn't it?) Also, speedometer don't have dimensions, which makes it hard to compare vertically.Human are sensitive to the change of figures, so if we use text object, process event would be more efficient.

These representations are options, and your customers can vote their best one.