Data and interpretation are central

The Boekman Foundation has been committed to art and culture for decades and is the independent knowledge center for art and culture in the Netherlands. In particular, emphasizing and making visible the social value of art and culture is a spearhead of the foundation. Together we developed the websitecultuurmonitor.nl in WordPress, on which, among other things, data and visualization are combined in an interactive dashboard created with Highcharts.

Making data available and visualizing it are central, but the platform also serves another function. Provide interpretation. So not just raw data, but also accompanying insights that explain the data. For us, the focus of this project was on the technical realization of the data link and the freely adjustable visualizations.

A dashboard for data visualization

An important aspect of the data dashboard is to provide insight into data quickly and easily. And to easily convert all this data from the database into a visual presentation, we chose to use the Highcharts library. 

With Highcharts you implement, as it were, your own data fishing tool that is easy to use. Perhaps even more important than the appearance is the ease of use. Users can create a clear visualization via indicators and variables with just a few clicks. 

The dashboard also meets a number of features.

• Search and select indicators
• Line and bar charts only
• A download button for .csv and .jpg
• View the raw data via table
• Source reference per graph, no reference to source explorer.

The video above shows how the dashboard works. All available data is immediately visible to the user. After choosing one or more indicators, a user can view the composite data in table form or visualized in a graph. Moreover, this way the user can easily compare different data streams from different industries.

A dashboard for mobile

It was also important that the site would work well on mobile. This meant some fitting and measuring work, especially for the dashboard. Ultimately, navigation on mobile is designed differently than for desktop. So truly custom work.

One of the pain points when designing a mobile site is the aspect ratio. A site must suddenly look good in both landscape and portrait orientation and, above all, respond well to what the user expects. The upright format (also called portrait) therefore had priority in our case. Buttons, links, drop-down menus and text all need to respond in such a way that they look good on mobile.

“All parts of the Boekman Foundation are well presented and fit together nicely.”

What does the customer think?

We are very happy with the website as it is now. Thanks to the collaboration with Van Ons, we now have a website in which both the library catalog and the Culture Index are integrated.

We are very satisfied with the website. All parts of the Boekman Foundation are well presented and fit together nicely. The new website allows us to present our different products in context.

Contacts were pleasant, if something needed to be done we could count on it. Van Ons thought along with us from the start.

Nuran Bozkurt

PR & Communications Boekman Foundation