Open the Behance or Dribbble website. Search for "Sales Dashboard" or "Customer 360." You are bound to be impressed by the stunning designs. You might get inspired to start redesigning the dashboards in your organisation. Hold on, not so fast!
Insight 1 — We Overestimate Data Literacy
We overestimate people's ability to be data-driven decision-makers. You may not get well-defined requirements for what data and insights need to be shown. Users may be unable to foresee what level 2 or level 3 data insights they need (level 1 being the summary on the dashboard).
The ability to explain level 1 data is super important. For example: X>Y (level 1), why is X>Y this month (level 2), why was X Visual data stories or overloaded charts are overkill in situations where users see the data daily. The cognitive load of discovering an insight from the visual might be much higher than you think. These techniques are more relevant for a one-time presentation. "If you need to see the temperature of Delhi every day, do you need a map of India with the temperature hovering in the northern part?" Without the right technology stack, dashboards will never be as agile as the business needs. It's very common to find a dashboard becoming obsolete because the underlying process has changed. The lifecycle of "data to insight" needs to be shortened from "months to minutes." Putting more business analysts and data scientists into this problem is not going to solve it — you need the right stack.
Insight 2 — Visual Overload
Insight 3 — The Tech Stack Problem