Six rules for a dashboard people actually read (and the 5-second test)

Nobody reads your 40-chart dashboard. A dashboard is a decision tool, and a page that tries to serve every question serves none: the reader scrolls once on Monday morning and never opens it again. One page on the one question, the six rules, and the charts that lie. The print-ready A4 PDF is at the bottom.

One question

• One job: the decision the page serves. Everything else is a report.
• Top-left holds the number that matters.
• 5 seconds: if a stranger cannot say what the page is for, cut.

Six rules

• At most 6 charts per screen.
• No pies: bars beat angles.
• Same scale across comparable charts, or the eye lies.
• Label the so what: the title is the insight, not the metric name.

Numbers

• Versus target: alone, a number means nothing.
• Versus last period: direction plus size.
• Round it: 4.2M, not 4,213,877.

Layout

• F-pattern: top-left is read first, so put the answer there.
• Filters on top, in one row, no sidebar.
• Whitespace is not empty. It is what makes the six charts readable.

Trust

• Last updated, printed on the page.
• Define the metric: a hover or a footnote.
• One owner, with their name on it.

The 5-second test

Hand the page to someone who has never seen it. Five seconds. Then ask four questions.

• The number: which single number did you read first? It should be the one the page exists for.
• The direction: up or down versus target? If they hesitate, the comparison is missing.
• The action: what would you do now? A page with no answer is a report, not a tool.
• The date: when was it refreshed? If they had to hunt, trust is already gone.

Every chart that did not help answer one of the four is a candidate for deletion. Most pages lose half their charts on the first pass.

Gotchas

• Truncated y-axis: drama, not data.
• 40 KPIs: zero priorities.
• Red/green only: 8% of men cannot see the difference.

The trap: the charts that lie

Interview phrasing worth memorizing: a dashboard is a decision tool, so I start from the decision, pick the six numbers it needs, and show each one against a target.