Kibana new metric visualization too small and doesn't show full value

[leandrojmp (Leandro Pereira)]

Hello,

I'm currently on version 8.5.1 and can't updated at the moment, I'm trying to creat a dashboard showing some metrics and decided to use the Metric visualization instead of the old Legacy Visualization, but I have two issues with it.

The first one is that the value is too small and there is no options to configure the size, position, anything, the second issue is that it does not show the full value, it abbreviates by the unit.

Is there any way to change it? Is this behavior the same on version 8.6.X ?

For example, I need to show the unique count of hosts from an specific index, and I have 2875 hosts, the new metric shows this as 2,88 mil, the legacy metric shows correctly what I need to see.

The screenshot below shows the difference on 8.5.1, is this the same on 8.6? From the release notes I saw that a trend line was added, but is the value still abreviated and this small?

[stephenb (Stephen Brown)]

Hi @leandrojmp

Yeah I'm not a big fan of that either! Not sure what is the strategy there.

I have been using the new gauge for single metrics... It's more clear to me.

Let me ping in and see if we get a response.

[leandrojmp (Leandro Pereira)]

I tried the gauge but it is even worse in my case, it leaves a huge border from the left.

This is how the gauge looks:

Is there any issue on github tracking changes on this metric visualization? I could give some feedback, there should be an option to show the full value and show it bigger, the way it is now it is not useful.

[stephenb (Stephen Brown)]

I use the vertical gauge it is more compact in my opinion

I have not heard back yet / I'll take a look.

[Giovanni_Magni]

Hello Leandro and thank you for reaching out, your input is really valuable and we are trying to gather as much as we can in order to see where we can improve.

First of all, what are we doing to improve your specific case:

1. We are lowering the breakpoint value (250px of panel width, instead of 300) in order to display the Large font settings a little earlier, since we noticed that you were getting the Medium set of sizes at a very "borderline" width.
2. We are currently discussing on how to fix the formatting of the values.

The following image show what should be the final result:

Now, I'm sure a possible reaction would be "that's not big enough" and I see that, this is why I'd love to explain you a little bit the thinking behind that.

Originally, Metrics would adapt font-sizes according to the number of digits, this would create a set of problems. First of all, bigger quantities would appear smaller than little values (20000 would appear perceptually smaller than 20).
Second, all metrics would appear different from each other. The following image is a clear example of both cases:

We needed to have some logic behind these sizes then, and we decided to introduce a new layout and a new set of breakpoints that would allow us to have a little bit of control on the visual results. With our new layout, to show the difference, the previous image would look like this:

Higher readability, less cognitive load, hopefully a cleaner design and look.

Now, for your specific case, you may ask why did we choose that specific font-size? Because it is designed to display at least 7 digits, few punctuation marks and the measurement unit in that amount of space

I know this may all sound as a limitation, but it all goes in a design direction the aims at creating a wider consistency among charts.
We are obviously open to re-consider these breakpoints and sizes and to adapt them according to our users needs and cases, so please keep on reaching out with these kind of issues, they are particularly helpful for the design team.

In the meanwhile, just to give another little update, we know the Bullet Graph is not great at the moment, a design update on that one is coming too

All the best,
Giovanni

[Giovanni_Magni]

PS we just added a documentation page for the new Metric Chart into EUI, you can find it here: Elastic UI

[leandrojmp (Leandro Pereira)]

Hello @Giovanni_Magni ,

Thanks for the detailed explanation, I understand the approach with the new metric better now, it really have cleaner design and look and this would work for a lot of use cases that we have here.

The issue I mentioned here is that in a lot of cases I need to be able to see the full value of the metric, specifically when we are using a unique count and from what you shared this will be possible in future updates.

The size of the font is another issue, it may not be a big issue when looking at the dashboards on a desktop monitor, but when we put a dashboard on a big TV, it will be hard to see, so the need to have a metric with a big number like the legacy metric still exists.

A lot of times I just need a box with a big number, I do not need trend lines, measurement units, title, subtitle, second metrics and with the new Metric this is not possible, only with the Legacy one, which the name implies, will be deprecated on future releases.

Having an option to use the full width of the metric box to show the number and resizing the font accordingly would be nice.

Maybe have another kind of metric for use cases like this?

[elasticforme (Sachin)]

@Leandro agree, that is why when I updated to 8.5.3. I have not used lense metric and or change older one either.