City dashboards are increasingly becoming a tool of urban management and governance, used by administrations to monitor key urban metrics and the performance of services and policy. To date, however, there has been little research done from a users perspective of what constitutes a good or bad city dashboard and to establish essential user-centered design principles. In this foundational study, we examine four city dashboards with respect to their design, content, usability, and utility as experienced by existing dashboard users. The study presented was undertaken using a protocol analysis that elicited verbal reports through concurrent think-aloud sessions. In addition, critical incident technique procedures were followed to collect interaction data of critical significance to the users. A content analysis was then conducted on transcripts from these sessions. The research identified specific areas of concern to current dashboard users and led to the creation of new and informed guidelines for producing a dashboard system for Dublin, Ireland.

城市仪表盘正日益成为城市管理和治理的工具，被行政部门用来监视关键的城市指标以及服务和政策的绩效。然而，迄今为止，从用户的角度来看，关于什么构成好坏的城市仪表板以及建立基本的以用户为中心的设计原则的研究很少。在此基础研究中，我们检查了四个城市仪表板的设计，内容，可用性和实用性，以了解现有仪表板用户的经验。提出的研究是使用协议分析进行的，该协议分析通过并发的思考对话会议引出口头报告。另外，遵循关键事件技术程序来收集对用户至关重要的交互数据。然后对这些会议的笔录进行内容分析。该研究确定了当前仪表板用户关注的特定领域，并导致创建了新的和有见地的准则，为爱尔兰都柏林生产仪表板系统。