5 Principles for High-Impact BI Dashboards

The Framework to Structure a Dashboard that Drives Profit

Wait…another data visualization article?

There are many resources on data visualization, but not enough on the dashboard framework. In issue 6, I’m going to walk through some fundamental design principles to structure a Business Intelligence (BI) dashboard.

The positioning of your dashboard’s tiles are critical for telling a story in a way that’s digestible and clear to the end user. With this clarity, stakeholders are able to make decisions faster, leading to less time from insights to action that drives profit.

Let’s get into the five foundational principles of BI dashboard structure to create the highest impact possible.

5 Principles of BI Dashboard Structure

Before I get into the list, an important call out is that I’ve had a lot of success with the funnel approach to dashboard design.

I’ll get into what this means in the first two principles.

In our examples, we’ll be referencing a sales dashboard for a fast food chain. This leads perfectly into the first principle…

1. Start with a High-Level Summary (The Executive Snapshot)

Aligned to my point above, start with the summary metrics at the top. Typically I’ll leverage single value tiles for each metric.

In the case of a fast food chain’s sales dashboard, from left to right you’ll have Gross Sales, Net Sales, Number of Transactions, and Average Check.

2. Structure for Progressive Disclosure (Drill Down as You Scroll)

After the summary tiles, I typically place a section for trends. Leveraging stacked bar charts, we can show sales by products.

We can visualize a line graph to show sales and transaction counts over time next to the stacked bar. This section expands on the summary metrics, breaking them down more to uncover patterns and trends.

Lastly, you could show tables or advanced visualizations at the bottom that require more attention. The idea is if a user has tracked all the way down to the bottom, they’re clearly looking for more advanced insights and breakdown details.

I like the idea of tables at the bottom since you can include many dimensions in a single tile, but you get the idea.

3. Use Logical Sections & White Space for Readability

I always include header sections after the top single value summary tiles.

In our example, we’d have a header section for “Sales Trends” and “Sales Detail” to separate the Summary > Trends > Detail tile sections.

These headers organize and reduce clutter, making it easier to focus.

4. Provide Context By Leveraging Notes

Usually, on the tiles themselves you can add a note to further describe a metric. This is especially important if there is a caveat to a given metric.

For example, if sales data from 2022 is not available due to a data pipeline issue upstream, note that in the sales metric tiles. That way when a user goes to filter for a range of dates containing 2022 they aren’t confused.

If the BI tool allows for it, I usually include tile notes as a hover option. If the callout is critical, let the note be visible at all times, with or without a user hovering their mouse over it.

5. Keep Interactive Filters and Navigation Intuitive

Ah, yes…interactive filters at the top of the dashboard. This is one of the most complicated pieces to get right.

In my experience, it’s a balance between giving the users the flexibility to filter on what they need, while not overwhelming them.

In an ideal world, without acceptance criteria written by eager product teams, I’d say limit dimension filters to no more than five.

However, I know that isn’t reality. If you’re tasked with requirements of 10+ filters, just ensure to organize them in an order that makes sense.

Use clear labels that tie to the dimensions so they’re easily recognizable to end users.

Some typical filters at a fast food chain might be Region, Country, Customer Daypart, and Site Number.

Go the extra mile with link functionality

To make navigation intuitive - creating link tiles that pass your filter configuration between a suite of dashboards is another great way to architect them.

For example, the sales team might have a specific set of filters they always need. You can navigate from one sales dashboard to the next by clicking a link tile to the dashboard you navigate to while keeping the same filter configuration.

For example, say you’re on the Sales Overview dashboard, but then click the link tile to the Product Sales dashboard because you want to see more detail and metrics on specific products.

 It’ll take you to the Product Sales dashboard but it keeps the same filter configuration you had on the Sales Overview. If you then click the link tile back to Sales Overview, it’ll still maintain those filters.

The result is convenience, time savings, and a seamless user experience for the end user.

Simplicity and Structure is the Guide

Designing a dashboard that drives profit is about guiding your end user. Off-center, nonsensical placement of tiles without a logical structure creates confusion. Your goal as an analyst is to describe the story data is telling your stakeholder.

In my experience, dashboards easily miss the mark because of an analyst’s tendency to overproduce and clutter (I’m guilty of it, too!).

This causes analysis paralysis and lack of focus. My hope is that this funnel framework gives you the foundation needed to efficiently present insights to stakeholders.

If you need guidance on designing dashboards for your marketing, ops, and finance teams, feel free to schedule a quick call with me here.

Furthermore, I’ll be upping the cadence of Rooftop Insights from monthly to weekly starting now.

Let me know other topics you’d like me to cover if you have a moment! Thanks for reading.