Dashboards That Earn Their Space on the Wall

Before building any dashboard I ask one question: what decision gets made from this screen, and how often? If there is no answer, the request is really a request for a one time analysis.

Honest encodings matter. Truncated axes, dual scales and rainbow palettes all inflate perceived signal. Restraint reads as competence.

Latency is a design constraint. A panel that takes twelve seconds to load will not be consulted during a live conversation, which is exactly when it is needed.

The best dashboards get smaller over time. Every quarter, remove the tiles nobody looked at.