{"id":1961,"date":"2026-03-29T11:42:54","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T15:42:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress-473092-1485251.cloudwaysapps.com\/?p=1961"},"modified":"2026-03-29T11:42:54","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T15:42:54","slug":"what-is-a-dashboard-4-steps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/what-is-a-dashboard-4-steps\/","title":{"rendered":"What is a dashboard &#038; 4 steps for creating a good one\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11984 alignright lazyload\" data-src=\"http:\/\/data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/What-is-a-dashboard-4-steps-for-creating-a-good-one-576x1024.jpeg\" alt=\"What is a dashboard\" width=\"300\" height=\"533\" data-pin-title=\"What is a dashboard &amp; 4 steps for creating a good one\" data-pin-description=\"Are you familiar with a dashboard? Well if not, it's fine - you just have to head over to this post to learn more about it! Click now to read the 4 steps for creating a good #dashboard, too! \ud83d\udd17http:\/\/data-mania.com\/blog\/what-is-a-dashboard-4-steps\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/What-is-a-dashboard-4-steps-for-creating-a-good-one-576x1024.jpeg 576w, https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/What-is-a-dashboard-4-steps-for-creating-a-good-one-169x300.jpeg 169w, https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/What-is-a-dashboard-4-steps-for-creating-a-good-one-768x1365.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/What-is-a-dashboard-4-steps-for-creating-a-good-one-51x90.jpeg 51w, https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/What-is-a-dashboard-4-steps-for-creating-a-good-one-864x1536.jpeg 864w, https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/What-is-a-dashboard-4-steps-for-creating-a-good-one-450x800.jpeg 450w, https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/What-is-a-dashboard-4-steps-for-creating-a-good-one-365x649.jpeg 365w, https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/What-is-a-dashboard-4-steps-for-creating-a-good-one.jpeg 1080w\" data-sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 300px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 300\/533;\" \/><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">If you find yourself at meetings and are still asking yourself &#8220;What is a dashboard?&#8221;, then don&#8217;t be embarrassed! The majority of business professionals in today&#8217;s data-driven environment are in that same position. This article answers that exact question, and gives you some great tips on how to get started building one for yourself.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\">What is a dashboard?<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">To be fully honest, when I first entered the world of business analytics, I also had no idea about the meaning of the word &#8220;dashboard&#8221;. Frankly, the only thing that came to mind for me was the front casing of a car. And in fact, there is some link between the two uses of the word.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">[box]<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"font-size: 1.6em; letter-spacing: 1px; text-align: center;\">Learn Data Science &amp; Engineering<\/h3>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">at Simplilearn<\/h3>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\">Courses 50% off until March 14th<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Discount Code = SPRING50<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Discount Code, India Only = MARCH50<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">[supsystic-slider id=3]<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"font-size: 1.6em; letter-spacing: 1px; text-align: center;\">Act Fast! Deal ends on 03\/14<\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">[\/box]<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">You know the gauges you see on your dashboard? The ones that tell you how much fuel you have left, how fast you&#8217;re driving, and how hot your car is running? You rely on those to provide you important information about your car when you&#8217;re driving it, right? Well, business dashboards function in much the same way.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In the business world, <strong>dashboards are <a href=\"http:\/\/data-mania.com\/blog\/learning-d3-lil-help-d3viennos-d3-tutorial-loading-external-data\/\">data visualization<\/a> tools that provide high-level decision-makers the information they need to make data-informed decisions about their respective businesses.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">They usually look something like this:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/lillian-piersons-answer-to-what-is-a-dashboard-question.png\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1967\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-1967 size-full lazyload\" data-src=\"http:\/\/data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/lillian-piersons-answer-to-what-is-a-dashboard-question.png\" alt=\"What is a dasboard?\" width=\"1230\" height=\"918\" data-pin-nopin=\"true\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/lillian-piersons-answer-to-what-is-a-dashboard-question.png 1230w, https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/lillian-piersons-answer-to-what-is-a-dashboard-question-300x224.png 300w, https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/lillian-piersons-answer-to-what-is-a-dashboard-question-768x573.png 768w, https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/lillian-piersons-answer-to-what-is-a-dashboard-question-1024x764.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/lillian-piersons-answer-to-what-is-a-dashboard-question-90x67.png 90w\" data-sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1230px) 100vw, 1230px\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 1230px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 1230\/918;\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Or like this:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/what-is-a-dashboard.png\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1968\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-1968 size-full lazyload\" data-src=\"http:\/\/data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/what-is-a-dashboard.png\" alt=\"Lillian Pierson answers the question, What is a dashboard?\" width=\"1226\" height=\"922\" data-pin-nopin=\"true\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/what-is-a-dashboard.png 1226w, https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/what-is-a-dashboard-300x226.png 300w, https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/what-is-a-dashboard-768x578.png 768w, https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/what-is-a-dashboard-1024x770.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/what-is-a-dashboard-90x68.png 90w\" data-sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1226px) 100vw, 1226px\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 1226px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 1226\/922;\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Dashboards are usually interactive data products, but you can design them for many types of audiences, and to meet many types of objectives. I included a chapter on dashboard design in my book, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/1118841557\/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=211189&amp;creative=373489&amp;creativeASIN=1118841557&amp;link_code=as3&amp;tag=datamania-20&amp;linkId=Z743WAU7G6M4JFA3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Data Science for Dummies<\/a>. It looks like <a href=\"http:\/\/www.zingchart.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ZingChart<\/a> liked that chapter so much that they chose to feature it in a recent presentation!!!<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\">4 Steps to Better Dashboard Design<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><iframe style=\"border: 1px solid #CCC; border-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 5px; max-width: 100%;\" src=\"\/\/www.slideshare.net\/slideshow\/embed_code\/key\/d8yl6YOaGtCS1p\" width=\"595\" height=\"485\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"> <\/iframe><\/p>\n<div style=\"margin-bottom: 5px; text-align: center;\"><strong> <a title=\"4 Steps to Better Dashboard Design - ZingChart\" href=\"\/\/www.slideshare.net\/ZingChart\/zingchart-dashboarddesign\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">4 Steps to Better Dashboard Design<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>from <strong><a href=\"\/\/www.slideshare.net\/ZingChart\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ZingChart<\/a><\/strong><\/div>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\">Want to know more?<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">If so, you&#8217;re in luck!! Now that you&#8217;ve got the answer to the question, &#8220;What is a dashboard?&#8221;\u2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">I will also show you a free, IBM application that you can use to begin creating dashboards for yourself. It&#8217;s called Watson Analytics. I will be giving an overview on &#8220;What is Watson Analytics?&#8221;, and showing a demonstration on how to use this application.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">This will all be provided in a free webinar event next week, on March 11, 2016 at 8:30 am CST. Mark your calendars and then <a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/1XYiUnu\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">pre-register for the event here<\/a>!<\/p>\n<hr\/>\n<p><em>Want a clean, repeatable system for measuring B2B growth? Get the free <a href=\"https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/growth-metrics-os-email-course\/\"><strong>Growth Metrics OS<\/strong><\/a> \u2014 a 6-day email course for technical founders and operators who want to measure growth and make better decisions.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you find yourself at meetings and are still asking yourself &#8220;What is a dashboard?&#8221;, then don&#8217;t be embarrassed! The majority of business professionals in today&#8217;s data-driven environment are in that same position. This article answers that exact question, and gives you some great tips on how to get started building one for yourself. What [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1968,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[843,582],"tags":[49,120,218],"class_list":["post-1961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-benchmarks-metrics","category-startups","tag-data-science","tag-data-vizualization","tag-what-is-a-dashboard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1961"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20380,"href":"https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1961\/revisions\/20380"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.data-mania.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}