Filter wildget in a dashboard: where best placed?

Question

I have one web page (single web-app) which shows a powerful dashboard.

The design of the dashboard is nice and neat and it contains all of the information required by its functionality.

To give you an idea, it has a chart graph and a table and a few other widgets.

Now there is a new requirement. We need to be able to filter the data presented to the user.

I am thinking of creating a little 'filter widget' on the top of the page or on the bottom of the page. I am thinking of making its position fixed.

Has anybody some suggestions on best practise to do this ? or maybe some website links where somebody solves a similar problem

Answer 1

As a common advice, in "occidental websites", filters are often on the top or on the left, as they modify the rest of the page - think about filtering in google, amazon or any other sites.

Also, a filter should always be clearly related to the elements it will affect: by example, this can be through a tab design, or using the same color as the modified part of your page. The user should never ask themself "what part of the page will it filter if I click here?".