Dashboards are expensive. Beyond the investment in a particular platform, companies sink thousands into the time it takes for specialists to build the dashboard. The hundreds of staff hours spent in meetings about the metrics. That’s not cheap. Add in the opportunity cost of delayed decisions while waiting for the perfect dashboard to be built.
For all that investment, you’d expect a pretty good return. So, then why is it that so many BI dashboards gather dust?
You know your dashboard is working well when you see usage metrics in acceptable ranges and frequencies. It’s doing its job when you see decision makers reference dashboard data in meetings. And, you know the dashboard is engaging when you get requests for updates, adjustments and additions.
However, most of the time? You get crickets from the business side. Silence!
I’ve consulted hundreds of companies about their data visualization, resolving pain points and introducing solutions, and “dashboard underwhelm” is one of the most common issues that pops up, regardless of industry. In those conversations, I’ve seen patterns that predict a dashboard’s lifespan. Watch for what follows.
Trying to Make too Many People Happy
The developers tasked with dashboard construction likely consulted with multiple departments, and roles within those departments, to get input on what the dashboard should report. The problem is that everyone needs different information to do their jobs well.
The developers — who naturally want to please their supervisors — then make a dashboard where they’ve tried to cram in everyone’s hopes and dreams. These dashboards invariably become both visually overwhelming and actionably underwhelming because any given viewer has to dig through irrelevant visuals to get to what matters to them. People will dig only so far before they give up.
To do dashboarding right, you need different metrics in different layouts for different audiences. CEOs don’t want to widget and drop-down their way to the bottom line. They want interpretation of the key indicators that matter the most to them.
Managers, on the other hand, likely need those drill-down menus so they can investigate issues. A dashboard suitable for management will inherently be more complex.
Requiring Too Much Insider Knowledge
The best clue that a dashboard is likely to die a quick death: a set of unrelated numbers in a large font up at the top. Depending on your industry, you might refer to these as your key performance indicators KPIs) or big ass numbers (BANS). Whatever you call them, they lose your audience fast.
Let’s use an example. Monthly Active Users: 4,283,912
The only people who can make sense of that number are the people who are so close to the data for monthly active users that they can look at 4,283,912 and tell you whether that’s good, bad, or same as yesterday. Interpreting that number takes a lot of insider knowledge. It’s only a helpful way of reporting for your power users.
Everyone else needs context so they can make meaning out of that number. They’ll need to see the history of monthly active users to determine how it’s trending. They’ll need to see how that number relates to the annual goal.
Without that context, the number is just decoration. It’s something to glance at, not something to act on. And when your dashboard doesn’t lead to action, it stops getting used.
A Dashboard Is the Wrong Container for the Data
Dashboards came of age before our lives revolved around screens. They were initially meant for C-suite executives to get the high-level view of their KPIs while marching from one meeting to the next.
We don’t operate like that anymore, but we’ve still clung to the notion that dashboards should entirely fit within one screen. This design parameter leads to cramped displays that people don’t want to use.
Yet at the same time, the demand “We need a dashboard!” has become popular — so much so that we task developers with creating these because it sounds sexy even if it isn’t actually the right container for the data.
Perhaps some of your audiences would benefit more from a static one-page handout with contextual narrative so the reader better understands the information displayed. Maybe the right container looks more like a website where there’s a mix of images and explanations that can convey the meaningful interpretation of the data. People scroll these days. It’s ok if the information spans beyond one screenshot — so long as that information is informative and useful.
Dashboards don’t automatically improve decision-making just because they look slick or use the latest BI platform. If they’re visually intense, overly generic, or hard to interpret, they will be ignored, no matter how much they cost.
But when dashboards are thoughtfully designed, aligned with audience needs, and built for real-world use instead of trendiness, they become a powerful tool. So, before you launch another dashboard project, ask: Who is this really for? What decisions will it support? And, is a dashboard even the right solution? The answers to those questions will save your organization a lot of time and money.
