Excited to learn how to build your best dashboard ever? These are the 5 simple steps that you need to master.
Picture this: A pretty and useful dashboard you can go to every month to figure out what is working and not working for your business. Sounds dope, isn’t it?
If the idea of making your own aesthetic dashboard sounds good to you, you have landed in the right place. As a former digital analytics consultant, I have helped multiple clients with their data visualization projects and I will be breaking it down for you.
You will learn all about setting dashboard goals, dashboard KPI, best dashboard tools, building data dashboards, best dashboard design, and more.
This post is all about building the best dashboard for your business.
Step 1: Define Your Dashboard Goals
At the beginning of any project, the first step is to plan and outline your project goals. Consider who the dashboard is intended for, who stands to benefit from it, and what specific goals or issues you aim to address.
Ask yourself these questions:
- Is it primarily for monthly reporting or exploratory analysis?
- Is it tailored for the business or marketing teams, or perhaps both?
- Is it targeted towards C-level stakeholders, managers, or team members?
Then, determine whether you need a broad overview of data or a more in-depth analysis.
These considerations are important when setting project goals, ensuring you stay on the right track. With countless data points available and various chart and graph options, defining project objectives helps you make informed decisions throughout the project.
Step 2: Identify KPI
After defining your goals, the next step is to select the key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics you want to feature on your dashboards.
Align these with the objectives established in Step 1, and DO NOT go overboard. Stick to what directly serves your objectives, as incorporating irrelevant data can lead to unnecessary time spent on the project.
In this step, you should also consider the ease of collecting the data. If the data isn’t readily available, explore alternative sources or calculation methods. Flexibility is key when adapting to data availability and finding suitable metrics that align with your project’s purpose.
Step 3: Choose the Best Dashboard Tools
Once you have nailed down the KPIs and metrics, the next step is selecting the data visualisation tool. Here are some common dashboard tools you can choose from:
- Excel
- Google Sheets
- Looker Studio
- Power BI, and
- Tableau
I prefer Excel for its user-friendly interface, making it ideal for my smaller projects.
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Step 4: Craft and Build Your Dashboard
Now that you have picked your tool, it is time to design and build your dashboard. With a plethora of charts and graphs available, the challenge is deciding which one suits your objectives.
Here’s a quick cheat list based on different goals:
For CHANGE:
“Sensitivity” over time
- Line
- Column
- Histogram
For CLUSTERING:
“Segmentation“
- Bubble
- Distribution
- Candlestick/ Boxplot
For RELATIVITY:
“A relates to B”
- Pie
- Treemap
- WordCloud
For RANKING:
“high to low“
- Bar
- Spider
- Sankey
For CORRELATION:
“relationship between A and B“
- Scatterplot
- Regression
- Double Bar
Before jumping into the chosen tool, take a moment to sketch your design and layout on paper.
- Draw boxes for each chart or graph
- Note the KPIs and metrics used in each one, and
- Decide which chart or graph to use in each box.
This initial planning phase provides a roadmap for your creation process.
After designing, you can now transition to the data visualisation tool and map out your design accordingly. You would expect to go through 1 to 2 mockup phases before finalising your graphs. At this stage, make sure you have a sample data set ready so you can actually see how the charts and graphs look like.
Step 5: Finalise Your Design
Lastly, you finalise your dashboard design. You should tick off these 2 checklist:
- Ensure you’ve achieved the project goals set in Step 1.
- Verify the accuracy of the data reflected on the charts.
Depending on the project scale and the number of stakeholders involved, you might need someone to maintain the dashboard. This individual should be capable of:
- Regularly updating the dashboard with the latest data.
- Addressing any queries from stakeholders using the dashboard, such as explaining formulas for specific KPIs.
- Fixing bugs that may arise during regular usage.
This post is all about the 5 basic steps to building your best dashboard ever.
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