We are redesigning a set of scorecards and related financial reports intended for Senior Management. Our company has a history of using black boxes to visually separate and organize blocks of data. We have been slowly changing this practice by first adopting 50% gray boxes, then doing away with some boxes and eventually moving to 25% gray for remaining boxes and heading underlines, etc. In the current design cycle, we are removing even more, but have run up against the question of whether or not some level of "outlining" is necessary to visually organize the data or to provide visual weight.

The pdf files below show two prototypes that highlight the types of reporting design issues we are confronting. The first page is a Scorecard, and the second is an example of a detail page that would typically supplement scorecard information. The examples do not "foot" as we doctored up the data out of concern for confidentiality.

We would like feedback mainly on the use of lines to visually organize the data, but we are also concerned with the appropriate use of color, bold face and other formatting techniques. Bear in mind we are working in EXCEL, in a fast-turnaround automated environment.

Thanks in advance for any feedback.

Paul Grande

PROTOTYPE 1 (2 pages):

PROTOTYPE 2 (2 pages):

-- Paul Grande (email)