If you display a time-sensitive data then your visitor may need to have an auto-refresh option. There are many browser plugins, but of course  it’s better to reload the chart or the table only instead of the whole page.

The button at the left so far is the best one I’ve seen. Possibilities:

• you can always see how long ago the object was reloaded just looking at the blue ‘progress bar’
• manual reload
• switch the reloading off
• of course select the refresh interval
• it takes minimum of the screen space (the black menu disappears when you’re not working with it)

What can be improved here? Of course intervals. Depending on your needs you can either add/remove/change intervals or re-do it completely using two separate fields: the first one for the amount and the second one for the time units (e.g. seconds, minutes, hours).

Disregarding of this small imperfection this is really the best option I’ve ever seen.

Feel free to contact me if you need a custom interface idea or review of the interface you have already!