Dashboard design faces lots of challenges like too much data, user expertise and so on. This presentation is about how to avoid these mistakes.

1. 13 common
mistakes in
dashboard
design
Rahul Gupta

2. Issues in Dashboard Design
– Too much data available to show
– Choosing right infographics to communicate the info
– Quantity vs Things-that-matters-most trade-off
– Is dashboard for novice/expert ?
– What is goal of the dashboard ? What do we want user to know/assess ? This
will govern what should be included and what should not.
– “If the statistics are boring, you have got the wrong numbers.”- Edward Tufte

3. Exceeding the boundaries of a
single screen
Why?
– It is easy to form relation between
components, when everything on
dashboard fits in single screen.

4. Supplying inadequate context for
the data
Example
– Not enough info about what
numbers mean.
Solution
– Tooltip, helper text
– Benchmarking the data

5. Displaying excessive detail or
precision
Non-Examples
– Mkt cap being shown in decimal
points
– Examples
– Showing in human readable format

6. Expressing Measures indirectly

7. Choosing inappropriate display
media

8. Introducing meaningless variety

9. Encoding quantitative data
inaccurately

10. Arranging the data poorly
– Similar metric/data should be
placed together
– Examples
– Fitbit puts all daily stats in one tile

11. Highlighting important data
ineffectively or not at all
– Google finance use it effectively :
stock price, the single most
important thing
– Fitbit misses this point

12. Cluttering the display with
useless decoration

13. Misusing or overusing color
– Color should be used to make a
point or help something stand out.

14. Designing an unattractive visual
display

15. Case Studies
– Google Finance: stock page
– Fitbit Dashboard
– Screener.in

16. Salesforce dashboards