I hate dashboards. It started when I was working for a company providing data to a big banking company. Their executive was all-in on the idea of a giant, and I mean giant wall of dashboards, charts, metrics, maps, graphics. "So we can look like NASA" Big numbers, impressive stats—something that people could look at and be awed by. They spent tens of millions building that room, and it was impressive, I'm not gonna lie. 200 feet wide of edgeless TVs with dashboards, dashboards, dashboards. My job was to make data mockups to show how our platform's stats might look on that wall. When I saw them in person though, I realized that they were just charts drifting in a sea of noise. They were mockups, not bound to data at all. We didn't know even if we could build them or how the data would look when it was real. No one noticed. The data looked real, so it was real. Lesson #1: People don't question data if it looks good. Later, when I was working on an product for an Insurance company, we made a metric to determine if the jobs completed through our app were done "successfully". We had a meeting, decided on a way of measuring it, and moved on. It was meant to be temporary, and just a way to make in-roads with the operations and supply chain teams so they could be on the same page. We didn't find out until later, that they started using that metric as THEIR definition of success, and coaches began being told that this metric was what they needed to focus on. But it was fundamentally flawed, and we realized that the app needed to change, which would change the metric. But we couldn't, because an entire org had their eyes on that number. So we compromised and made a new one... but kept the old one. Simplicity! Lesson #2: Don't fall in love with your metrics. Needs change, make sure they can too. As I've gone deeper into B2B design, I've become more and more disenfranchised with the Dribbble-ication of dashboard UI. I mean, just go to any UI showcase site and search for Dashboard design or something. They look, well, they look amazing. Smooth lines, beautiful datasets, big bright bold numbers... Sorry to break it to you, but that's usually not how data works. It's messy, convoluted, up and down, flat, empty, hard to understand, and harder to get insights from. A great dashboard design may look like absolute trash when real data is put into it. I've been in these shoes myself. Devs and PMs all-in on a great dashboard concept, but when the real data gets plugged in... well, it's... it's not what you think it will be. Lesson #3: Dashboards shouldn't be designed in isolation. They should be informed by data from the beginning as a core component of the visual design. So. If you've made it this far, you might be asking me why all of this context is attached to a RT of @Basedash's new Dashboards feature. "Tom, don't you hate dashboards?" I do. But I don't hate what they could be. And I don't hate what we're building them to be. We want them to be easy to set up and easier to take down. Something that anyone on your team can make, and get more advanced only when needed. Data that can only be based off of your real, accurate product data. Never made up. Something that doesn't ask you to think about how it should look first, and then bind it to data later. Something that brings developers and consumers of data all in the same place. Something that makes your data look great. Something that brings you close to the actual records that make up the big numbers, but doesn't obscure them behind an aggregate query. Hopefully, something that can become a core part of a team's daily routine, like this has to ours. I want to love dashboards, and I want you to love them too. ---- Also, I mean show us some love on PH, kthx bye.