This paper introduces design patterns for dashboards to inform dashboard design processes. Despite a growing number of public examples, case studies, and general guidelines there is surprisingly little design guidance for dashboards. Such guidance is necessary to inspire designs and discuss tradeoffs in, e.g., screenspace, interaction, or information shown. Based on a systematic review of 144 dashboards, we report on eight groups of design patterns that provide common solutions in dashboard design. We discuss combinations of these patterns in "dashboard genres" such as narrative, analytical, or embedded dashboard. We ran a 2-week dashboard design workshop with 23 participants of varying expertise working on their own data and dashboards. We discuss the application of patterns for the dashboard design processes, as well as general design tradeoffs and common challenges. Our work complements previous surveys and aims to support dashboard designers and researchers in co-creation, structured design decisions, as well as future user evaluations about dashboard design guidelines. Detailed pattern descriptions and workshop material can be found online: https://dashboarddesignpatterns.github.io.

This paper focuses on an investigation of collaborative virtual environment (CVE) technology for people with autism, paying particular attention to the use of avatar representations of emotions. A prima facie case for a CVE technological approach is developed, which argues that CVE offers great potential benefits for people with autism. An empirical study of people with autism using a simulated CVE system has been carried out. Results suggest that, on the whole, the participants were able to recognise and operate the avatar representations when communicating via the CVE system.