Attention UI Designers: "Dashboards" Surface Information
I’ve noticed a disturbing trend in some projects I’ve been involved with lately toward building “Dashboards” that are essentially trumped up navigation.
In an alternate universe I’d have time to pull together supporting examples but for now, what with prepping for Prairie Dev Con next week, I just want to get the message out:
The purpose of a Dashboard is to
- surface information;
- provide feedback; and
- help me make decisions
The Dashboard of your car doesn’t contain buttons labeled “gas”, “speed”, “mileage”.
Instead, it contains gauges that tell you at a glance how your car is doing.
Make sure that if you put something called a Dashboard in front of a user that it actually meets that expectation.