Excel dashboards require a different way of thinking about excel, the features that excel provides and the communication of data. The presentation of excel dashboards for performance reporting are based on key principles of visual design.
They require a different way of thinking about excel and the communication of data. They are resource intensive at the beginning as you are trying to establish the information requirements of your audiences. This can be at various levels such as strategic and operational. You also need to have a good data model – pivot tables are great for this job. There are many other principles you should keep in mind.
One page display
If your dashboard contains too much information it will fail to convey the data effectively. Also, the data might end up on more than one page. Remember, our aim is to communicate a message about the data, don’t include every bit of data in a dashboard. The information displayed should be the most relevant and within the left and upper part of the screen. This will depend on the purpose of the dashboard. The other point here is that if something is off-page, then it can’t be viewed quickly. It might not be seen at all. The other reason for this is when you print your dashboard, it should also fit to a single page.
Easy to understand
An excel dashboard should help to visually identify trends and patterns quickly without confusion. This means that there should not be any visual competition or chart junk present. Fancy formatting distracts users from the key messages. This includes fancy 3D charts, logos, pictures and gauges, which don’t communicate key messages well and take up too much space. Visual reports should help managers decide if any further action or drilling down is required. The use of visual attributes should be used to aid visual perception.
Add interactivity
The position of your excel dashboard components will vary in importance to your reader. Usually, the upper-left and middle-left of a page generally gathers more attention than the bottom right. It is a bit like a web page.
Find out about the latest guide and examples about developing your own excel dashboard. Read more about creating pivot tables. You will never use excel the same way again!
