January is just ½ a month old and already I’m sensing this could be the year of the dashboard. I’ve had several inquiries in the last two weeks from companies looking to add some sort of analytical/SaaS dashboard to their product portfolios.
The biggest issues with dashboards are a) a desire to build them for everyone and b) overwhelming the user with choices (a good design should make it effortless for the user to get in and out in minutes what they need to do their job).
In the spirit of sharing – here are some best practices I’ve learned over the years:
1) Not everyone needs all the data, so be very clear about who the actual audience is – be open to tiering the product for different groups.
2) The first screen/page should be a simplistic ‘summary/overview’ page that shows the most important (or most recent) data based on user needs and be sure the graphs/visuals on that page have immediate ‘drill down’ interactivity to get to deeper data faster.
3) Be stingy with the number of tabs/navigational elements and be even more stingy with what features/functions are in each of their drop downs. Think simplicity over sophistication.
One last thing, I separate dashboards from analytics programs. Dashboards are for quick access to commonly used data. It means thinking through what kind of data goes where and to whom. It’s putting content strategy before visual strategy.