Designing a dashboard: how to make sure it will show useful data
Designing a dashboard gives you an opportunity to showcase the data your users care about the most in one, beautiful page. It can be equally as overwhelming, as exciting. Deciding what content to display can be tricky. This article is a collection of ideas on what to ask during the initial research and then how to confirm your assumptions, before diving into prototyping.
Initial research
Step 1. Review existing data
You probably already know a lot about the popular areas of your software, but this step helps you make sure all of it is fresh in your memory. Dashboards show useful and interesting data and reviewing popular areas of your software will help you find out what’s important to your users.
Questions to ask:
- What data do you already have, which might be useful? For example, which areas of your software are the most frequently visited by your users?
- What information do your users need to use the app effectively?
- Is there any information you could provide or highlight, which will help them with tasks related to the app?
- Is there any data currently difficult to review at a glance?
Step 2. Who is your target audience?
Knowing your audience will help you select the right categories for your graphs.
Questions to ask:
- How could you group your users based on how they use the app?
- How do different types of users use your app? What are the main differences/similarities?
- What are their habits?
- What do they care about? This is an assumption that could be made based on the most frequently visited areas, or previous feedback. You can validate those assumptions in the later stages of this project.
Step 3. Look at competitors (and other interesting examples)
It is always good to know the current market standards. Gaining an understanding of what is already out there helps us learn about the subject and understand the existing solutions. The examples do not have to be from direct competition — for example, you can always count on fitness tracking apps to find interesting graphs.
Questions to ask:
- What graph categories are displayed? Are there any categories that repeat?
- How many graphs are displayed?
- Is there an option to customize the display/tinker with the data?
- What types of graphs are they using?
- Did anything about their design choices surprise you?
Find out more
Survey & workshop idea to help you gather more insights:
Initial survey — what information is important to your users?
By now, you will have some assumptions on the categories you might select for the dashboard. Use this survey as a voting system for different data types and to confirm your assumptions about important tasks/useful information. At this stage, you are just interested in the categories and subjects, so I wouldn’t include any visuals yet — as soon as you show them, they will become the main focus. Try to ask specific questions, which you think will point you into the right direction of what information is important and useful for your users.
Workshop — define initial concepts
This simple workshop idea will help you define initial concepts for your dashboard and learn more about your users. I would recommend to meet with participants individually and to ask them for a permission for a voice recording, so you can type your notes later (or you can ask someone nice to join the session and take notes).
Prepare for the workshop:
From the research completed so far (including the survey), prepare initial ideas for what graph categories you will present on the page. Imagine you are writing graph titles for each of those categories and write them down. Select 5 or more of the graph titles, but make sure that the number is not too high, as it might become tiresome for the participants.
1. Once the graph titles are ready, print them out on separate cards.
2. Prepare a worksheet, or print out this workshop form (image below). Feel free to use your own/modify this to be more specific.
3. Bring post it notes, pens and sweets (optional, but nice).
Session details:
Task 1. Show the graph titles to the participant, but don’t try to explain what you mean by each title (this will also validate your copy). Ask them to order the cards from the most important information to the least. If they can they should narrate their thought process, as they are ordering the cards. Ask them questions encouraging them to let you know what they are thinking, but be careful and don’t lead their answers to an outcome that you think is right.
Task 2. Once ordered, place the cards on the printed out workshop form (in the graph column). Each graph title now has its own row — ask the participant to now think of a title as a potential graph and write down answers for each section (what/why/display…). Ask them questions throughout this to help them through the process:
- What?
Describe in one sentence: what information, in your opinion, will this graph represent? - Why?
Why do you think this graph could be useful (or not useful)? What do you think you would use this information for? - Display…
What control would you like to have over this data and why? For example to select a date range, or pick a specific category. Allow them to sketch out an idea if they wish to do so.
After the workshop, make sure to review the data and prepare a summary, so you can use it for your prototypes. What surprised you? Were all of the graph titles understood as you expected? Which graph category was voted as the most important and why? Which one was the least important?
…and a little bit more advice
Think about the structure
What type of graphs are you planning to use? Which one will represent the data the best? What customization options are you planning to add, if any(selecting a date range for example)?
Iterate, iterate, iterate
Dive into design and iterate, iterate and iterate. Ask for feedback as much as you can, it will help you design beautiful graphs. Make sure to consider the existing UI when designing the dashboard. How can you keep the brand consistent? It is easy to get carried away when designing a dashboard, make sure everything you do still looks like a part of the rest of the product.
Open Source graphs
Have a look at open-source graphs out there. They can be customized and will make your developers life a lot easier. Even if you are not planning to use an open-source library, I would recommend having a look as it might inspire you, for example to use a new type of graph. Examples:
Once you’re ready…
I would recommend a beta release to a small selection of users. It’s an opportunity to gather more feedback from users at the very moment of them using the dashboard. For example, by adding a feedback section and including a link to a survey. It will help you improve the dashboard even more or to validate your next ideas.
