The purpose of a dashboard is to present data in a clear, effective and efficient way. While every dashboard will differ depending on the company, industry and purpose of the dashboard, there are a few fundamental techniques to keep in mind when designing it. And while the design is important for visual and aesthetic purposes, it’s also crucial for the overall effectiveness of the dashboard.
Before getting to the design stage, however, you first need to answer a few questions:
1. What is the purpose of the dashboard?
There is no point randomly throwing on every metric that can be measured. Consider what the dashboard is being designed to show. Is it to highlight progress towards one specific goal, an overall company target or highlighting performance of a full marketing campaign? Knowing what you are trying to show is vital to determine before you design it.
2. Who will be using the dashboard?
Is it being shared with senior management, just your team or the entire organisation? This will determine what level of detail is required, which will affect not only the metrics and KPIs to display, but the overall design of the dashboard as well.
3. What software will you be using to create your dashboard?
Do you have software ready to use to create your dashboard, or do you need to source it? If you haven’t got it in-house, we can help you with that. Dashboards are our thing.
4. What type of dashboard do you need?
Operational - These are for when you want to monitor specific processes and contain detailed, granular data.
Strategic - Used to give high level overviews, identifying opportunities and issues.
Analytical - Used to analyse large amounts of data, mainly historical.
Tactical - Fall somewhere between strategic and operational, used to monitor processes and facilitate decision making.
You don’t need to be a designer to build a dashboard that clearly communicates your key goals and metrics. A well designed dashboard will organise and display a lot of information that can be interpreted quickly, at a glance. Once you know the answers to the questions above, then you can design your dashboard.
Track and visualise your KPIs on a real-time dashboard with Hurree. Book a free demo today and discover how to truly harness the power of analytics and transform your company reporting using cross-platform dashboards. If you have any questions then feel free to reach out to contact@hurree.co, we'd be happy to answer them!