Dashboards: UX recommendations when creating data pages
In the information age we live in, where there is an endless flow of data, analytics, and metrics, it is essential that the information we receive is clear, precise, and understandable.
In the process of filtering what interests us, there is a risk of getting lost in an endless stream of data without context or foundation. This poses a critical risk in situations that require strategic measurement processes, such as marketing campaigns, research, field analysis, or business monitoring. It is for these scenarios that the orderly management of all this data, known as KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), is necessary.
For all these situations, the use of dashboards helps us better understand the data we have. A dashboard can be defined as a panel or tool for managing and analyzing information.
On it, we can visualize, filter, monitor, and compare different data through a highly visual interface that serves as a guide for making business or analytical decisions. Some principles that underpin a dashboard are:
Principles for designing dashboards
- Scannability: The dashboard must be understandable to the user, quickly displaying the data in a clean manner.
- Relevance: The data shown should be the most valuable to the user, at least initially.
- Navigation: The dashboard should be navigable, providing the user with tools to move around and explore the data on its interface easily and without obstacles.
- Functionality: Above all, the dashboard must be functional. It should offer tools that allow the user to customize data visualization, analyze in depth, filter, compare, or share information according to their needs.
- Adaptability: The dashboard must be adaptable to the specific audience it is intended for, taking into account the types of data to correctly visualize the information on which it will be based.
Essential elements of dashboards
In short, the dashboard is based on principles of simple, effective, and clean design, avoiding excessive use of elements and resources on the screen and steering clear of clustering.
It should only have what is necessary and provide the tools to offer the user the functionality it promises:
- Navigation elements: Lateral navigation menus, top sticky bars, etc. These components will allow the user to explore different sections of valuable information.
- Data visualization: There are various ways to visually represent information: graphs, diagrams, tables, heat maps, affinity maps, radar or spider charts…
- Action components: Tools provided to users to customize or distribute the information according to their needs, such as zoom buttons, filter systems, comparison buttons, export or edit options, different visualization types for the same data flow…
- Informative visual elements: The way we highlight information to quickly show what interests the user. Color tags, legends, information bubbles or tooltips…
- Grouped containers: In the interest of order and multi-device organization, dashboards include cards or containers where data and information panels are placed, respecting the order and prioritizing the main information, placed at the top of the page (above the fold).
Recommendations for designing dashboards
Once we know the content that should appear on our dashboard, it’s time to get to work: How can we create a dashboard for our business?
Following user experience principles, something that will inevitably guide our steps during the process, we must consider some vital aspects:
- User research: The creation of the dashboard must be based on researching the users it is intended for. We need to understand the user’s uncertainties and needs to ensure that the information our dashboard contains meets their expectations about what to find and how to interact with it.
- Competitor analysis: With this information, we need to focus on competitors, how different dashboards function and what they offer users in common, industry standards, finding points or functionalities that could elevate your product.
- Simplicity: When defining what our dashboard should or should not incorporate, one idea should always be kept in mind: simplicity. Making our data panel easily scannable and understandable based on a simple design with freedom of action will determine the effectiveness of our metrics panel. With data on user flows and expectations, we will know effectively what our dashboard should and should not include. It should not take long for the user to find the essential information, and tools should be provided to filter and search for more specific data, but not display everything upfront to avoid unnecessary cognitive load.
- Scalability: It is also essential to remember the principle of scalability: the distribution of information will also depend on the context in which the information is viewed, the device, or the user’s needs at certain times. Expanding or reducing visible information and having a responsive layout is key to accommodating situations where users need to reduce or expand the information to analyze or compare it.
- User testing: Finally, once the design is done and verified for its content and functionality, we must return to the users and test with them whether it contains and functions as it should, where it works, and where it falls short, and collect all that feedback to iterate on our work. The success of our dashboard, like any digital product, ultimately resides in the iteration and updating of its functions and features.
It is essential to remember that the true power of a dashboard does not lie solely in its ability to organize data, but in how it facilitates and enriches user decision-making. As user experience experts, our challenge is to design dashboards that are not only intuitive and accessible but also deeply aligned with user needs and expectations. By focusing on clarity, relevance, and functionality, we can transform the overwhelming tide of data into valuable and actionable insights, empowering users to navigate confidently through the complex world of information.
This is a translation of the following article from our corporate website:
