Design Strategies for Intuitive Dashboards

If you drive a car, you already know how important a functional dashboard is. Dashboards in our vehicles come with key indicators that give a range of crucial feedback and keep you and your car safe. The information on the dashboard will not only help you reach a destination but also ensure that the car doesn’t overheat or that you aren’t driving too fast. The same theory applies when we are talking of dashboards in our website. Dashboards define the end user experience and the simpler and more convenient it is, the better would be the output at the other end.

What interfaces are to customers is dashboards to website admin. However, a beautiful yet well defined dashboard can be a daunting task to achieve. The ideal scenario requires the dashboard to work as a concierge who is always there to greet you, fill in about what has been going on and help you on the planned activities for the day. Now, website dashboards come in a variety of performance specs including key performance indicator (KPI), business intelligence dashboard (BI), analytic dashboards and productized application dashboards. Designed rightly, a dashboard will increase productivity for all users at both ends. It not only decreases the learning curve but also helps avid users increase their productivity.

Today, business intelligence dashboards for applications and websites have become the ultimate analytic tool. Integrated with in-memory and data mining capabilities, they will track all aspect of the business performance and suggest a prognosticated future. Dashboards, as a BI tool, have been helping all kinds of businesses and brands shape their future strategies. When it comes to designing dashboards, there is no "one size fits all" scenario. The intuitiveness and effectiveness of a BI dashboard often depends upon the things you are looking to achieve with it. There’s an unabridged chasm between the technical skills of the developer and the actual BI needs of the business. However, there are some general rules that fulfill the journey towards a "best case" solution.

Start from the basics before you implement advanced features

It’s true for any website that 80% of your users will be access only about 20% of the features. Developers can best assist the users by focusing on these key features before moving on to offer advanced functionality. While you can always allow advanced users to access more complicated setting using keyboard commands, the majority of the user should be able to use the visual cues to use the buttons and links they have come looking for.

A basic intuitive experience calls for providing a few but thoughtful options. In most cases, the simpler your dashboard is, the better appreciated it is.

Data at your helm

In the modern world of business intelligence, users look to gain insights into products and services by analyzing data from several different sources. Google Analytics is one of the most popular tools when it comes to features like CRM. Fiverr, the leading marketplace for creative services, tracks the user behavior for the 4 million services they offer to get insights about their UX. Data and information has become a crucial part of any online service and the same applies to the development of dashboards.

Collecting and analyzing data from the several different support forums will always help you better understand all current products and come up with necessary updates/upgrades. This includes feature requests, bug reports, customer issues that define your R&D workflow. These feedbacks will always help you with a better set up dashboard.

Embedded data analytics

Embedded data analytics software, as is used by popular dashboard like Zendesk and Salesforce, integrates powerful reporting capabilities and allows the developer to offer a customer facing dashboard. The beauty of this tool lies in the multitude of connections to data repositories, wherein both customers and clients can seek a more precise decision making.

Without the presence of an integrated BI tool, users will have to resort to exporting the information to excel sheets to squeeze out information. Though viable, this is always extra work and quite time taking. The possibility of a human error cannot be sidelined too. Also, if data processing takes this long, it could have an impact on the decision making process.

However, if you already have an analytics tool embedded into the dashboard, you can have your analysis then and there. Further, with the use of visualizations (graphs, charts, etc.) it would be easier to ask for answers. Thus, exposing the end users to access such analytic visualization will be an incredible addition to the dashboard.

Though each of your service and product is different, they do have one single goal of discerning the financial numbers. Without a proper dashboard, it could be easy for the accountant but most normal users will look disappointed. Dashboards will intuitively guide your clients and help them work towards productive discussions.

Take dashboard as a picture. A picture that requires designers and developers to be suggestive! This is also where color palettes and iconography comes in. The "Home" button should mean nothing else than bringing you to the main landing page. Similarly, you will also have to make your color scheme intuitive. Some color concepts are already ingrained into our head and heart. When we see a red colored graph, it intuitively means something wrong – falling revenue, a decrease in stocks, etc. On the other hand, greens and blues in graphs have always been used to define positive changes. It would be a disaster to interchange these visual cues.

Before you launch your dashboard for the masses, it would be worthwhile to "take it for a walk". A test drive will give you the necessary feedback about the errors and suggestions for improvement. Show it to your colleagues, to your friends and see them work on it and speak out their mind.

Today, design is the language that most online businesses speak. It is necessary that you enjoy that process and making it an amazing experience for others.