Splunk® Enterprise

Developing Views and Apps for Splunk Web

Splunk Enterprise version 7.0 is no longer supported as of October 23, 2019. See the Splunk Software Support Policy for details. For information about upgrading to a supported version, see How to upgrade Splunk Enterprise.
This documentation does not apply to the most recent version of Splunk® Enterprise. For documentation on the most recent version, go to the latest release.

Design guidelines

To create a user experience that is consistent with standard Splunk visualizations, follow these guidelines.

Visualization picker

Custom visualization preview icons, labels, and descriptions appear in the Visualization Picker user interface.
6.4 mod viz picker screenshot.png

Icon

Create a custom visualization preview icon. Follow these screenshot guidelines.

Recommendation What to do What to avoid
preview.png Provide a preview.png file in the app directory.

Tree map preview icon preview.png
 If no screenshot is available, a generic image appears.
6.4 mod viz generic icon.png Difficult to identify or find
detail Use an appropriate detail level in the screenshot.

Tree map preview icon Detailed visualization preview
 These visualization icons are difficult to understand.
6.4 mod viz avoid screenshot.png Not enough detail
6.4 mod viz also to avoid icon.png Too much detail
size Use an 116px by 76px image. Make sure that the image fills the available space fully.
Tree map preview icon No gaps or borders
 Do not use a screenshot with gaps or borders.
6.4 mod viz screenshot gaps avoid.png Icon has gaps

Description

Provide a visualization label and description to display in the Visualization Picker. List these attributes in the custom visualization visualizations.conf stanza.

Example visualizations.conf stanza

[single]
label = Single Value
...
description = Track a metric with context and trends.


Guidelines

Character limits
Make sure that all strings in visualizations.conf follow these character limits before publishing the app.

  • Label: 30 characters
  • Description : 80 characters
  • Search fragment: 80 characters


Description best practices

Recommendation What to do What to avoid
Help users decide whether to use the visualization. Tell users what they can do with the visualization.

Best practice: "Track a metric and trends over time." 		Do not describe what the visualization looks like.

Avoid: "This visualization has a circle with an arrow."
Use active voice to engage users. Focus on a task that users can accomplish.

Best practice: "Show how a metric varies across geographic regions." 		Avoid technical descriptions of components.

Avoid: "This visualization has a map that can be used with searches that generate an aggregate value."
Keep the description minimal. Convey only the necessary information.

Best practice: "Compare values or fields." 		Do not repeat the visualization name.

Avoid: "A color meter visualization shows a value in a range."

Best practice examples

  • Horizon chart
Use a baseline to show positive and negative changes for multiple time series.
  • Real-time location tracker
Show physical asset locations in real time.


Description template and terms

You can use the following components and term suggestions to create a custom visualization description.

Component Suggested terms
Action
What the user can do with the visualization
  • show
  • track
  • compare
  • plot
  • use
Information or behavior
What kinds of information or behavior the visualization shows
  • values
  • trends
  • metric
  • changes
  • relationships
  • fields
  • status
Presentation
How the visualization presents information or behavior
  • over
  • in
  • against
  • in relation to
  • between
  • using
Key components
Visualization component that adds meaning or emphasis
  • baseline
  • dataset
  • range
  • map
  • region
  • time
  • context
  • trend indicator
  • sparkline
  • icon


Text

Use the following settings for all chart axis, label, and legend text. For tooltip text guidelines, see Tooltips.

Font
Lucida Grande typeface. Specify the CSS font-family property as shown here.
font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Arial, Helvetica
Color
#555555 (Dark gray)
Label settings
1. X- and Y-axis titles 2. Tick mark labels

6.4 mod viz axis label text.png


Line-height
16px

Size
12px
Line-height
12px

Size
11px

Color

Use one of the following color palettes.

Semantic colors

Use semantic colors to show meaning. For example, these colors can indicate value ranges in a results set.

Hex values Palette 

[
'#D93F3C',
'#F58F39',
'#F7BC38',
'#65A637',
'#6DB7C6',
'#555555'
]

6.4 mod viz semantic colors.png

Categorical colors

Categorical colors show how results belong to different categories.

Hex values Palette 

[
'#1e93c6',
'#f2b827',
'#d6563c',
'#6a5c9e',
'#31a35f',
'#ed8440',
'#3863a0',
'#a2cc3e',
'#cc5068',
'#73427f'
]
 6.4 mod viz categorical palette.png

Divergent colors

Divergent colors emphasize high and low values in a results set. Shades for values between the maximum and minimum depend on the number of bins configured for results.

Hex values Palette 

[
'#ED8440',
'#6A5C9E'
]
[
'#D6563C',
'#1E93C6'
]
[
'#49443B',
'#31A35F'
]
[
'#3863A0',
'#31A35F'
]
'#3863A0',
'#A2CC3E'
]
[
'#CC5068',
'#F2B827'
]

6.4 mod viz divergent colors palette.png

Sequential colors

Sequential colors emphasize high values in a results set. The following hex values correspond to base colors for maximum values. Show minimum values using a lighter version of the base color.

Ensure that the minimum value appears in a visualization by using a value no lighter than 10% of the base color. Colors for values between the maximum and minimum are set according to the number of bins configured for results.

Hex values Palette 

[
'#1D92C5',
'#D6563C',
'#6A5C9E',
'#31A35F',
'#ED8440',
'#3863A0'
]

6.4 mod viz sequential palette.png

Layout

Proper spacing between tick marks, labels, and legends makes a visualization look clean and legible. Follow the spacing and margin guidelines shown here.

Custom Viz Layout Guidelines.png

Spacing

Between Use this spacing
Y-axis label and visualization 10px
X-axis label and tick mark labels 10px
Visualization and legend 20px
Tick mark labels and visualization 5px


Margin

Set a 15px margin around the visualization panel.

Chart elements

Axis and gridline color

Keep gridlines and axis lines muted to maintain user focus on the data. Use the color settings shown here.

Custom Viz Axis gridlines chart.png

Gridlines
#ebedef
Axis lines
#d9dce0

Legend swatch

Use a 16x12px swatch for each item in a legend.

Tooltips

Padding
10px

Text settings

Size Line-height Color
6.4 mod viz tooltip guideline.png 1. 12px 16px #CCC
2. 12px 16px #FFF
3. 12px N/A category color

Pointer position
Position the tooltip pointer at the center of any tooltip edge.

Display size variation

Make sure that the custom visualization accommodates different display sizes.

Guidelines

Scale horizontally when panel or window size changes
Best practice: Adjust all elements so that the visualization scales the whole width.
Avoid: Do not use fixed sizes for horizontal dimensions.
Implement a responsive design
Best practice: For small display widths, hide unnecessary labels and other elements.
Last modified on 22 March, 2018
Data handling guidelines   Custom visualizations in Simple XML

This documentation applies to the following versions of Splunk® Enterprise: 7.0.0, 7.0.1, 7.0.2, 7.0.3, 7.0.4, 7.0.5, 7.0.6, 7.0.7, 7.0.8, 7.0.9, 7.0.10, 7.0.11, 7.0.13

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