Have you ever been involved in a project to develop an amazing Tableau dashboard that answers everyone's questions- only for it to never be used?
Arkatechture has 10 questions for you to use to stop this from ever happening again.
2. Have you ever been involved in a project to develop a
dashboard that promises to answer everyone’s
questions, takes months to develop, meets all
requirements...
...and then fails to be adopted?
3. It’s all too common that users don’t
have a clear vision of what they want in
a dashboard.
4. Asking the following 10 questions will help you to
design your dashboard for your users' needs, and
clarify what those are.
6. This should define the scope. All dashboards should have a single
purpose. Don’t let scope creep destroy your project. If a user can’t
succinctly describe what the dashboard will be used for in one
sentence that probably aren’t going to use it.
What is The Purpose of This Dashboard?
8. Naming the dashboard right up front will help to solidify the
purpose and begin the branding process. Try to be as specific as
you can in naming the dashboard. A generically named dashboard
will be ambiguous to users and may lead to confusion down the
road.
What is The Name of The Dashboard?
10. Analytics is all about making better decisions. Just seeing results in
a pretty picture does not add any real value. Understanding what
decisions the dashboard will drive will help to inform you about the
layout (guide them through the decision process) and it will put the
customer in the right mindset for the next questions.
What Decisions Will You Make Based on
This Dashboard?
12. A dashboard with 20 KPIs is destined to be too complicated and
will inevitably be too broad to provide real value. Limiting the
number of metrics will aid in the simplicity of the design, as well as
focusing the visualizations to provide specific actionable insights.
What Are The Top Measurements
14. The segmentation that the customer provides in this initial meeting
are going to be the most important. As time goes by they may want
to add more, but inevitably this initial list informs you what they will
be using the most. Common examples are geographic regions,
product types, and customers.
How Will You Segment These
Measurements?
16. The answer to this question is usually yes, but discussing this up
front will let you know, how much history you need to pull in. You
can save yourself a lot of refactoring by knowing this information in
advance.
Do You Need to See Trending?
18. Context around a number is critical to getting any meaning from it.
A dashboard without targets needs to have some measure of good
or bad. Start this conversation with the customer now because it
will inevitably come up.
Do You Have Targets Established?
20. A dashboard with 500 users will likely have more high-level people
that need provide input and will have a broader scope. Keep in
mind that a larger user base may indicate that it will be used for
multiple purposes.
How Many Users Will It Have?
22. Knowing the technical abilities of the user base will help you
determine the level of complexity. This will also give you an
indication of how much training is needed. If you have a non-
technical user base and a complicated dashboard adoption may
suffer.
How Sophisticated Are The Users?
24. Management loves this question. Being able to eliminate or
consolidate current reporting, especially if that reporting includes
manual effort to compile, can increase the value of the delivery. The
#1 way to increase adoption is to remove alternatives.
Will This Sunset Reporting That
Currently Exists?
25. thank you!
Arkatechture is a full-stack data
consultancy based in New England.
For more information, visit:
Arkatechture.com
or email us at:
info@arkatechture.com