3 Keys to Effective Dashboard Design

Written by Lonnie D. Ayers, PMP | Fri, Dec, 30, 2011 @ 04:48 PM

What To Keep In Mind When Designing an Executive Dashboard

Keys to Improving Dashboard Usability

There are really 3 basic design issues to decide when designing an executive dashboard using xcelsius or SAP BI4. When it comes to executive dashboard design, SAP dashboard design is as much art as it is science.

Designing a Dashboard

Data Selection:

What do you want to see.

Navigation:

How to navigate around the dashboard, for example, how to get from one chart to another chart.

Presentation:

How do you want to see the data, chart, graph, gauge dial etc

If you break the dashboard down to those 3 components, then the development process falls into place.

How Do You Achieve Effective Dashboard Design?

First, come up with a standard dashboard design and tell the whole company this is what they get, take it or leave it.

Second, don’t let each Business Unit try to redefine the dashboard. The Business Unit has to worry about what to display in the gauge or chart.

If 1 Business Unit gets a gauge, they all get the same gauge because they are all getting the same template.

Then life is easier for a lot of different people, including the developer.

Third. In order to define a company dashboard design standard, a common approach might require everyone to get into 1 room together to come up with a common design.

The alternative to getting everyone in the room and hashing out agreement will result in you spending 6 months gathering requirements and going back and forth until the final dashboard design is saved till last. If you cannot arrive at a common design standard or gain agreement on effective dashboard design outcomes, you will have to design specific dashboards for each Business Unit. This will result in higher development cost.

Best Practices in Dashboard Design

We can help you both design effective dashboards and implement them using proven Best Practices.

We would love to hear some of your dashboard design Best Practices.

Please feel free to comment or link to us.