With dashboard platforms, you don't need any design skills to create them.
When creating your sales dashboards, your goal should be clarity. The data on a dashboard should be effortless to view.
Clear and understandable dashboards have the following attributes in common:
They have a story to tell. The goal of collecting and analyzing data is to answer questions.
Simplify complicated ideas. When there's a lot of data, it can lead to confusion. Organize the right data so your teams know what to act on.
They focus only on what's necessary. The KPIs analyzed will differ depending on whether they're for sales managers, representatives, or account executives. Make sure everyone sees what they need instead of overloading your team with unnecessary information.
With these aspects in mind, let's look at some useful principles for designing your boards:
1. Consistency is key
Each board will show your salespeople a path. And those paths will lead to habits.
Therefore, it is important to maintain a level of uniformity in how dashboards are presented and accessed:
Structure names. The way you present metrics, units, and KPIs should be consistent across all dashboards. Don't use different names for the same metric or KPI.
Icons and visual cues. When using icons and other images, make sure they can be used across all boards. Using the “
” emoji to illustrate revenue might work for the sales team, but will it have the same chinese overseas africa database effect on a boardroom floor?Dates and other text-based formats. Times and dates should be formatted universally (e.g., 11/23/2021 or November 23, 2021).
Colors. Use a consistent color scheme. Ideally, choose no more than three colors to use on each of your boards. More colors can create more visual noise.
Regarding these design elements specifically, some platforms offer little flexibility, which will facilitate consistency. Greater flexibility means a greater risk of communication issues, so it's recommended to exercise caution when designing from scratch.
2. Minimalism is an excellent ally
Select your dashboard metrics carefully.
Typically, you should include between 6 and 10 data points. The SaaS dashboard below uses only 10 high-level business metrics:
