How to create better Dashboards.

Last week, we all completed the exercise 2 and for some of us this was the first dashboards we created. Even though using tableau to create a chart or a graph is super easy, analyzing it to get to the results you need is a time-consuming task and requires lot of iterations. So, after I completed my first dashboard I tried to analyze if that was the best I could do. This got me to research on the methods and approaches to designing great dashboards. Upon that I came across this article about “Designing and Building Great Dashboards”

“Different people in the company ask for different data to be displayed and soon the dashboard becomes hard to read and full of meaningless non-related information.” (SMITH, 2015) So, focusing on these high-level design rules help us to create a dashboard that is worth the time and effort we put in to designing it.

Rule 1: WHO ARE YOU TRYING TO IMPRESS?

The most effective dashboards target a single type of user and just display data specific to that ‘use case’.

Rule 2: SELECT THE RIGHT TYPE OF DASHBOARD

Dashboards are of different types and each of them is used for performing a specific purpose.
The types of dashboards are Operational, Strategic / Executive and Analytical dashboards.

Rule 3: GROUP DATA LOGICALLY – USE SPACE WISELY

Grouping data is very important to get the dashboard right. Either grouped by department or functional area.

Rule 4: MAKE THE DATA RELEVANT TO THE AUDIENCE

Ensure that the data you display on the dashboard is relevant to the users. The components should always be designed thinking about the scope and for data to reach of your users.

Rule 5: DON’T CLUTTER YOUR DASHBOARD – PRESENT THE MOST IMPORTANT METRICS ONLY

Whether it is useful and useless information added to fill the dashboard cluttered dashboards don’t give the impact. It often takes away the focus from the important messages.

Rule 6: HOW OFTEN DOES THE DATA REALLY NEED TO BE REFRESHED?

For dashboards that are interactive, we always have to keep in mind that the data keeps changing and so the dashboard has to be updated.

https://www.geckoboard.com/blog/building-great-dashboards-6-golden-rules-to-successful-dashboard-design/#.WJ9m1rYrKRs