Build the best Dashboard

Know your audience

Ask yourself: who am I designing this for, why do they need it, and what is their level of understanding with the subject matter and data?

Use the sweet spot

Most people instinctively start scanning a screen in the upper left-hand corner. Put your most valuable data point there.

Give direction

Don't assume your audience knows where to start interacting with your dashboard. Provide guidance or instructions of how to get started.

One dashboard does not tell all

Trying to cover every business challenge with one dashboard can result in information overload for viewers. Remember: you can always create additional dashboards.

Limit views & colors

Stick with two or three main views and only use colors when meaningful. Too many views and colors can create visual overload and get in the way of analysis.

Format tooltips

Tooltips can add great context or information for the viewer without taking up any precious real estate. Using tooltips helps to build interactivity and reinforce your data’s story. For example, when you hover over a mark, you get information just about that mark.

Get the basics down

Once you’ve created one or more views on different sheets in Tableau, you can pull them into a dashboard in two simple steps:

Step 1: Open a dashboard sheet: select Dashboard from menu, then New Dashboard

Step 2: Add views to your dashboard by dragging sheets onto the dashboard

Ready, set, (dashboard) actions

Adding actions to your dashboard allows users to not just look at your dashboard, but interact with it too. Get a general overview of actions in this video.

Source: Tableau Software