Information Dashboard

Information dashboard design practices

There is a lot of talks these days about best information dashboard design practices. Entire books have been written on the various subjects that cover this rather vague term. This information dashboard design does not attempt to cover all of those subjects, but rather to focus on one often overlooked principle that many companies are facing today. That principle is dashboard presentation.

Dashboard presentation is, of course, a part of best information design practices. Let’s face it, without good presentation most dashboard applications would fail. Design in its truest form is about presentation. Nothing too revolutionary there. So I set out to design an information dashboard with a presentation.

Today, more than ever before, the end user wants and demands more from web applications. Increased competition both globally and domestic is forcing designers to re-examine the way they design. So what does this have to do with best information dashboard design practices?

The UX process

First, we start with understanding our users by conducting user research and building personas, like the example below.

Next, we gather all key stakeholders of the new information dashboard and scope out the user’s needs. By being able to anticipate what the end users need, and by being ready to address those needs, you immediately propel yourself toward trusted user experience status. This can be achieved by rapid prototyping with wireframes like the one below.

Dashboard-UI-Wireframe

Finally, through rapid prototyping and usability testing, we deliver our minimal viable product (MVP, example below) and then go back through process again, to keep iterating on all user’s needs. Now, that is good information dashboard design practices at work.

information-dashboard-design