Performance Dashboards: Measuring, Monitoring, and Managing Your Business, 2nd Edition

CHAPTER 12

How to Design Effective Dashboard Displays

Overview

Good Design. This chapter examines how to design the “look and feel” of a performance dashboard so that it is easy to use and visually appealing. The visual interface—what users can see and do on the screens—can determine whether a performance dashboard succeeds or fails.

Visual design is important because business users don’t have to use a performance dashboard; in most companies, it is not a requirement for doing their jobs. They will use it if it makes them more productive and effective, but they will shun it if it is not intuitive or consumes too much time and effort for the value it delivers. They will go elsewhere to obtain the information they need, or they will rely on intuition and gut feel alone.

Good dashboard design instantly connects users to actionable and relevant data. Stephen Few, a visualization expert and author, writes: “The dashboard does its primary job if it tells you with no more than a glance that you should act. It serves you superbly if it directly opens the door to any additional information that you need to take that action.”¹

Challenges. Creating dashboard displays is challenging, and few report designers—the people who create dashboard screens in most organizations—have sufficient background in visual design to do a good job. Most rely on their own visual sensibilities combined with feedback from business users, who also lack knowledge of basic visual design principles. The process ...