There is increased interest in the interplay between text and visuals in the field of data visualization. However, this attention has predominantly been on the use of text in standalone visualizations or augmenting text stories supported by a series of independent views. In this paper, we shift from the traditional focus on single-chart annotations to characterize the nuanced but crucial communication role of text in the complex environment of interactive dashboards. Through a survey and analysis of 190 dashboards in the wild, plus 13 expert interview sessions with experienced dashboard authors, we highlight the distinctive nature of text as an integral component of the dashboard experience, while delving into the categories, semantic levels, and functional roles of text, and exploring how these text elements are coalesced by dashboard authors to guide and inform dashboard users. Our contributions are: 1) we distill qualitative and quantitative findings from our studies to characterize current practices of text use in dashboards, including a categorization of text-based components and design patterns; 2) we leverage current practices and existing literature to propose, discuss, and validate recommended practices for text in dashboards, embodied as 12 heuristics that underscore the semantic and functional role of text in offering navigational cues, contextualizing data insights, supporting reading order, etc; 3) we reflect on our findings to identify gaps and propose opportunities for data visualization researchers to push the boundaries on text usage for dashboards, from authoring support and interactivity to text generation and content personalization. Our research underscores the significance of elevating text as a first-class citizen in data visualization, and the need to support the inclusion of textual components and their interactive affordances in dashboard design.

翻译：在数据可视化领域，文本与视觉元素之间的相互作用日益受到关注。然而，这种关注主要集中于文本在独立可视化中的应用，或用于增强由一系列独立视图支撑的文本叙述。本文从传统上对单图表标注的关注转向，旨在刻画文本在复杂的交互式仪表板环境中所扮演的微妙而关键的沟通角色。通过对190个实际应用中的仪表板进行调查分析，并结合与13位经验丰富的仪表板作者进行的专家访谈，我们强调了文本作为仪表板体验中不可或缺组成部分的独特性质，同时深入探讨了文本的分类、语义层次和功能角色，并探索了仪表板作者如何整合这些文本元素以引导和告知仪表板用户。我们的贡献包括：1）从研究中提炼出定性与定量结果，以刻画当前仪表板中文本使用的实践现状，包括对基于文本的组件和设计模式的分类；2）结合当前实践与现有文献，提出、讨论并验证了仪表板中文本的推荐实践，具体体现为12条启发式原则，这些原则强调了文本在提供导航线索、为数据洞察提供背景、支持阅读顺序等方面的语义与功能角色；3）基于研究发现进行反思，指出当前研究的不足，并为数据可视化研究人员提出了拓展仪表板文本使用边界的机遇，涵盖从创作支持、交互性到文本生成和内容个性化等多个方面。我们的研究强调了将文本提升为数据可视化中一等公民的重要性，以及在仪表板设计中支持纳入文本组件及其交互功能性的必要性。