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A Dashboard can contain multiple Categories, which are basically just pages of related information. For example, in your company you may have a Category that contains all your Sales figures and another one that contains Human Resources information. By organising your data in this way, you can restrict what Categories users have access to and therefore prevent them from accessing data that you don’t want them to see.
What should I include in my dashboard?
It can be daunting creating your dashboard from scratch so the following list might help to get you started:
First and foremost, who is your audience? The data that you add and the way you present it should be geared towards a specific type of user.
Now you know the audience, have a think about the KPI’s those users would need to see. If, for example, the target audience is the CEO they will probably be more interested in final sales figures/ value and which region/ area is performing the best whereas an employee would probably be more interested in seeing lower level information like stock quantities or customer details.
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It can sometimes help to sketch out your ideas on paper before trying to build your dashboard |
Hints & Tips
Include your most important information in the top-left corner of the dashboard. This is naturally where the eye is drawn first.
Think about where your users are based. If the user base is in a country that reads differently e.g. from right to left rather than left to right point 1 would not work well for those users and you would therefore need to place your most important information on the right hand side.
Stick with the same colour theme. Remember the saying ‘Less is more’. The main purpose of the dashboard is for users to see the data. If you change colour themes on each chart, they’re more likely to be looking at the colours then focusing on the data.
When creating your charts/ data tables ensure that the labels and titles are easy for the user to understand. You might have a naming convention that you need to use from a development perspective but think about whether the user would understand that name and be able to work out what the data was telling them.
Think about what’s the best way to present certain data. For example, if you have lots of different information you need to give users a data table might be better than a chart. If you have chronological data, a Spline chart might the best option. If you’re unsure, try different chart types to see how they look.
Avoid abbreviations. You might understand them but would a new starter with the company also know what they mean?