Dashboards are all the rage in public health and development, but how do you approach designing a tool that's user-friendly and helps key decision makers answer questions? JSI's Barb Knittel and Emma Stewart share their insights from developing dashboards for multiple JSI projects and highlight key steps you should take before ever starting the actual dashboard build in order to create a great product.

1. SO YOU THINK
YOU WANT A
DASHBOARD?
Considerations for
collaborating to create
data-based dashboards
July 21, 2014
Prepared by:
Barb Knittel
Emma Stewart

2. 2|
What is the purpose
of a dashboard?
Adashboardis ahandy
overviewfordata,butisnotthe
finaldestination.
Adashboardisthemap that
leadsustoadecision.

3. 3|
Who is involved in
dashboard
development?
Subject
matter expert
Knowledgeable about
the audience
Familiar with your data
Data and data
visualization expert
Familiar with various
dashboard tools (Excel,
Tableau, etc.)
Knowledgeable about
best practices in using
data for decisionmaking

4. 4|
Dashboard Building
Blocks
Audience
Data
Design

5. Consider Your
Audience

6. 6|
Who is your
audience?
Audience considerations:
• What type of decisions are they
intended to make?
o Management
o Advocacy/ needs prioritization
o Project/ activity tracking
• How familiar are they with the data?
o Is this the first time they will be
seeing the information?
o Are they the data provider?
Knowing your audience is a critical
first step in designing an effective
dashboard.

7. 7|
No tool can be
everything to everyone
AUDIENCE: This dashboard is intended for use by district
level stakeholders in agriculture, WASH, and health
(nutrition, family planning, malaria).
PURPOSE: To raise awareness of the causes of anemia and
related interventions, in order to identify enter points and
support anemia prevention efforts at the district level.
Stating in writing the
intended audience will ensure
that all members of the
dashboard development
team remain on the same
page throughout the process.
It will also make it easier to
solicit feedback when you
share the dashboard with
others.
Dashboard User Profile

8. Analyze Your Data

9. 9|
What data do you
have?
Data considerations:
• What is the source(s) of your data?
• Does the timing align across your
sources?
• How frequently is the data
updated?
• Do you have qualitative data,
quantitative data, or both?
Garbage in- Garbage out
Informed decision-making relies on good data. No matter how pretty the picture,
without quality data, your dashboard will suffer.

10. 10|
Determine your data
sources
Determine where the data for your
dashboard will come from.
 Does it already exist?
 Will it need to be collected?
 By whom?
 How often?
If you need to collect data, this is a separate activity to building the
dashboard, and should be planned out with the appropriate M&E staff

11. 11|
PayAttention to
Timing
Dashboards are used to make
decisions so it is important that
data be comparable and any
differences in time period are
clearly marked

12. 12|
Consider update
frequency
How frequently the data
will be updated will:
 Inform the dashboard
design-- particularly the
backend
 Dictate how much
manipulation is feasible
for translating data into
images/graphics
Once a Year
Weekly

13. 13|
Identify the data
type(s)
Quantitative and qualitative data
are handled differently on a
dashboard.
Your data type will impact the
LOE required and influence your
design- particularly if you are
showing both types.

14. Engage a dashboard
designer

15. 15|
Content expert and
dashboard designer
meet to scope out
project
Audience
Dashboard type
Data
Medium
 Printed
 Online
Dynamic/static
Branding/marking requirements
 Colors
 Fonts
 Disclaimers

16. 16|
Designer creates
dashboard mock up
The mock up will:
 Help determine feasibility of design
with given data/ constraints
 Layout general design elements
The mock up will not:
 Be populated with all of the data
 Have all of the final design elements
incorporated

17. 17|
Content expert
provides feedback
Dashboard design is an
iterative process. Keeping in
mind your audience and
purpose, provide feedback to
the designer on the usability of
the dashboard and if the key
data has been captured in a
way that improves
decisionmaking.

18. 18|
Seek an outside
opinion
DO
 Ask someone unfamiliar with the tool and
project
 Provide the audience and purpose of the tool
 Ask the user to make a decision based on the
data
 Allow both the subject matter expert and
designer to hear the feedback
DON’T
 Provide additional assistance in navigating
the tool
 Get defensive if the tool is not as intuitive as
you thought- better to know this now!

19. 19|
Repeat
There will likely be many rounds of
feedback to get both the
functionality and layout just right.
Build time into your project timeline
for this review process

20. 20|
Finalize Design

21. 21|
thank you For more information
Visit
CHIME on the Intranet
Contact
CHIME@jsi.com
estewart@jsi.com
bknittel@jsi.com