Designing a landing dashboard

Overview

These dashboards are absolutely critical to good usability of a model. Dashboards are the first contact between the end users and a model.

What SHOULD NOT be done in a landing dashboard:

  1. Display detailed instructions on how to use the model. See "Instruction Dashboard" instead.
  2. Use it for global navigation, built using text boxes and navigation buttons.
    • It will create maintenance challenges if different roles have different navigation paths.
    • It's not helpful once users know where to go.

What SHOULD be done in a landing dashboard:

  1. Display KPIs with a chart that highlights where they stand on these KPIs, and highlight gaps/errors/exceptions/warnings
  2. A summary/aggregated view of data on a grid to support the chart. The chart should be the primary element
  3. Short instructions on the KPIs
  4. A link to an instruction-based dashboard that includes guidance and video links
  5. A generic instruction to indicate that the user should open the left-side sliding panel to discover the different navigation paths
  6. Users who perform data entry need access to the same KPIs as execs are seeing

Landing dashboard example #1:  

Displays the main KPI, which the planning model allows the organization to plan.landing 01.png

Landing dashboard example #2:  

Provides a view on how the process is progressing against the calendar.landing 02.png

Landing dashboard example #3:  

Created for executives who need to focus on escalation. Provides context and a call to action (could be a planning dashboard, too).landing 03.png