The relentless pursuit of something to satisfy everyone ends up in satisfying no one

A health check not an encyclopedia 

The most common reason a dashboard fails to work is simple. Too much information. It would be an impossible task to create a dashboard that answered everyone’s questions, and for that matter that shouldn’t be the goal. A dashboard’s intended purpose is to give you a glimpse into the health of whatever application you are monitoring. It is a health check intended to be used to then ask deeper questions for which another layer of analytics reporting would provide

Less is more

Huge dashboards with endless details that users only really focus on once, and then ignore because it contains too much detailed information are often the norm. However, dashboards should contain roll up figures focused on specific KPIs not detailed data. The figures shared should inform you quickly of high level results from which you may desire to dig deeper to understand why –  for example – your session lengths are declining.

Just a dash of data

Dashboards shouldn’t answer all your questions, nor will they provide exactly what everyone in your organization is looking for. While the initial thought is to continue to add to your dashboard to try to provide the insights everyone wants, this solution is actually counterproductive. A dashboard should be easily scannable and once you exceed the ability to scan it in three seconds, it is no longer considered a dashboard and people will stop scanning it much like the ad that sits on top of your favorite content site.

A dashboard that works

Your dashboard should be a summary of high level key indicators. It should be scannable in seconds, and be understandable by all users. We follow this philosophy with the FanReach dashboard. It was built as a simple and scannable tool to inform you of your performance based on the KPIs your organization determines to be most relevant and important. From there you can always run reports and dig deeper to inform decisions and strategy. Our dashboard can help you realize where you need to improve and where you are succeeding in a dash. And that is exactly what a dashboard should do for you. So ask yourself is your dashboard working for you?

Connect with us today to get started building a dashboard that works.