How to Create an Effective Dashboard

After mastering the usage process and various functions of BI, how can you create an effective dashboard?

The explanation in this document includes two perspectives, Dashboard Design and Dashboard Beautification.

Identifying the Target Audience of the Dashboard

Before creating a dashboard, you need to determine the target audiences and deeply understand their needs at first.

For example, if the dashboard is created for the boss to review the product sales performance of the mall, the dashboard should focus on key metrics such as current sales amount, historical period-over-period sales amount comparison, and the gap against the target sales amount.

Another example is that you want to uncover valuable insights based on the data you have. You might want to find out the influencing factors of sales, such as stores, promotions, and supply chains.

In short, an effective dashboard can only be created by deeply understanding the needs of the target audience, and creating a dashboard that matches their cognition.

Identifying the Dashboard Subject

The presentation of a dashboard should be tailored to the specific department or organization of the viewers.

Moreover, analysis perspectives in the same department are different, and in such cases, an Overview–Details layout can be used for presentation.

For pharmaceutical industry business performance analysis, you can adopt a general-specific approach, presenting information from key indicators to sales revenues, gross profits, and costs.

Additionally, you can use Tab Components to integrate and toggle between different elements.

Selecting Right Chart

If you want to select right chart, see How to Select the Right Chart.

Selecting a chart is also a matter of personal perspective and intent, it depends on the message the creator wishes to convey to the audience. This document will not go into further detail on this topic but hopes to provide suggestions and key considerations for choosing charts effectively.

Using a Pie Chart with Caution

A pie chart can display the proportional relationship between categories and the whole.

The number of categories should be limited in application. If there are more than 7 categories, it becomes difficult for users to read and interpret the data, as shown in the following figure.

Choosing a Column Chart or aBar Chart

Column charts and bar charts are used to compare numerical values across categories, where the metrics can be percentages, numerical values, and frequencies.

Although they can display temporal trends of a field, line charts are more suitable for such purpose.

The difference between a bar chart and an area chart lies in whether the rectangular bars are vertically oriented. Compared to column charts, bar charts are more suitable for displaying a larger number of rectangular bars.

Choosing a Line Chart or an Area Chart

Both line charts and area charts can represent the relationship between quantity and time. However, it's important to note that area charts can also show the relationship between parts and the whole when representing changes over time, as shown in the following figure.

Adding Text Label

Appropriately naming the dashboard, adding descriptions to pictures and illustrative labels in the page, indicating hidden interactions, or adding notes that describe calculation results (Adding Remarks for Analysis) can all help users quickly grasp the information presented in the dashboard, as shown in the following figure.

After processing the data and making the components, the next step is to organize and beautify the dashboard.

Layout

The principle of layout is alignment and order.

People are accustomed to viewing from left to right and from top to bottom, so it's better to place important content on the left and top of the dashboard. Related content should be placed adjacent to each other. At the same time, you can use whitespace and background colors to visually separate different sections of data.

Text

Your reading experience will be affected by small and thin text, color, and low contrast with the background.

Color

You can use different shades and tones of the same color to create charts, and sort them based on the quantity. By observing the color intensity, you can also perceive changes in the data. This coloring method is known as a monochromatic color scheme.

If you are customizing the color scheme, you should avoid using clashing or conflicting colors.

For example, color pairs such as yellow + white, blue + black, red + blue, or yellow + purple can not only appear visually unappealing but also cause eye strain. 

However, whether you use cool or warm color schemes, it's important to avoid using high-brightness colors.

Icon

Icons can serve as visual prompts to assist users in viewing dashboards, but you should be careful not to use them in a way that distracts the user's attention.