The Big Book of Dashboards

Chapter 32 Beware the Dead-End Dashboard

You've considered the purpose of your dashboard. You've worked with colleagues to ensure the questions being answered are the correct ones. You've considered layout and design and made something beautifully functional. In fact, you've made a successful dashboard that helps people answer the questions they are asking.

Congratulations! Building an effective dashboard is a difficult thing to do, and you've done it.

But if you think your work is done, think again; you're just getting started.

Dashboard projects do not have endings. Your business evolves over time, and your dashboards should do the same. If not, they run the risk of becoming dead-end dashboards.

A couple of years ago, I (Andy) purchased a Fitbit. The wearable device tracks your daily activity, focusing on how many steps you walk each day, with a default 10,000-step target. For the first few months, this device and its online dashboard were hugely motivating. (See Figure 32.1.)

Figure 32.1 Fitbit dashboard.

Fitbit took something that was difficult to record, step count, and made it easy to track. The dashboard didn't just reveal my daily walking patterns; it motivated me to change my behavior and walk more. The dashboard showed me which days I was failing (mostly on workdays) and allowed me to make strategies to walk more by, for example, taking morning strolls before ...