The characteristics of a dashboard

Search for the word dashboard online, and you will be presented with a list of articles about dashboards that seem to have little in common. The reason is that most online articles that are at the top of search results are by professional content writers and not data analysts, and many were hired to promote a specific tool. For data analysts, a dashboard has some clear characteristics that set it apart from other types of reports.

A dashboard has the following definitive characteristics:

• It is designed to be very visually engaging
• It must be easy to read and understand
• It must present actionable insights, using the key business metrics decision makers need to be on top of
• It must be interactive, allowing users to dynamically view dimensions or aspects of the analysis (this is often achieved with slicers and filters in Excel)
• It must be in its own dedicated sheet and occupy as close to a one-screen view as possible
• It...