Dashboard Design Tips

Dashboards are powerful tools if constructed properly. Here are some tips to keep in mind when building them for your business:

Split up your data into distinct, topical dashboards

Ideally, each dashboard you create should have a theme or focus. For example, all your data to marketing should be grouped into a single marketing dashboard. The same applies to other departments or roles within your company. Sometimes, however, you can benefit from a high level, summary dashboard which includes the most important charts from each of your dashboards.

Before including a chart on your dashboard, ask yourself: Is it actionable?

You should always consider the purpose of any chart when adding it to a dashboard. If data presented to your colleagues cannot be acted on, it ends up distracting from the rest of your more important and actionable data. This exercise is helpful in distilling your dashboard content down to only the most important.

Don't overload your dashboard with too much information

You know your dashboard is too bloated if you have to scroll below the fold. Try to keep it to a single page. Dashboards are ideally designed to enable Gestalt perception. In other words, you should be able to get an overall sense of the data from a single, quick glance.

The most important data should go in the top left corner

We tend to scan dashboards by looking in the top left corner first. Conversely, the lower right corner is usually the last place we look. This means that you should aim to place the most important information towards the top.

Avoid including a variety of charts for variety's sake

Every single chart and visualization on your dashboard should have a distinct purpose and rationale. It's tempting when creating a dashboard to spice it up with a variety of chart types for variety's sake. Although Chartio supports a variety of great visualizations, they should be considered on a case by case basis. Here is a guide to selecting the right chart based on the data being communicated