What is a KPI Dashboard? 4 Key Examples and Best Practices (2024)

Every dashboard is unique—but many fall into one of the four categories below based on their intended purpose and audience. Each template has a different focus that allows you to tell a story more effectively, and highlight the KPIs that matter to your business. Whichever type you use, the best dashboard tools allow you to easily drill into the data and get real insights.

The Executive KPI Dashboard

An executive dashboard is a reporting tool for monitoring long- term company strategy by examining critical success factors. These dashboards are usually complex in their creation, and are mainly used by senior-level management. They’re also a key way for companies to track KPIs against their goals over time.

Example: A hospital group that serves a large geographic area in Northwest England uses data-driven insights to support a desire for better systems. The Executive KPI dashboard provides their teams with a view of the most current data, allowing them to evaluate progress on key goals and objectives, improve clinical and operational experiences, and develop means to improve management, patient experience, and staff dynamics.

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The Operational KPI Dashboard

Operational dashboards are a very common type of dashboard. They’re used to monitor the current condition and present information in a simple, easy-to-view format that everyone can understand. These KPI dashboards aren’t designed for interactivity or to demonstrate progress toward a goal, but rather to provide a snapshot of the way things are now.

Example: A police force uses an Operational KPI dashboard as a daily tool to monitor crime, track the location and volume of police reports, and provide a view of incidents teams should be prepared to deal with.

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The Tactical KPI Dashboard

A tactical dashboard is used to track progress toward a goal, whether on a company-wide level or for a particular team or project.Interactive data visualizationis key for this type of dashboard, as you want to be able to dig in and determine why something is or isn’t going well. This helps teams determine if what they’re doing is working—and if they need to make changes.

Example: A software vendor wanted a simple, uncluttered dashboard to help their business users make faster, better informed decisions. This tactical KPI dashboard allows users to drill down into trends, discover key insights around the customer journey, and identify new customer targets based on behavior patterns.

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The Analytical KPI Dashboard

An analytical dashboard contains a vast amount of data created and used by analysts to provide support to executives. Analytics dashboards supply a comprehensive overview of business data and middle management is a crucial part of the user group. These dashboards are used to drive decisions and play a key role in the business.

Example: A consumer packaged goods (CPG) company operates in such a competitive market, it’s crucial to have an analytical dashboard that illuminates exactly what, where, and when people are spending. Analytics dashboards help you track marketing KPIs, forecast market share growth, apply historical data to track trends, and create smart comparisons to track the market against goals.

Learn how to design best-in-class dashboards

Designing a dashboard is about more than just making something look nice—it’s about using data to tell a story that helps your audience get what they need. Any data-driven dashboard must follow a few key design principles that add clarity and signal intent.

Affordance

Implement visual cues that indicate when an element links to another page, shows whether a button is active or inactive, or provides contextual information.

Color accessibility or contrast

Some people have a limited range of color vision, so it’s important to incorporate shapes and contrast to ensure that everyone can access the information they need.

Information hierarchy

Show data in the order of importance, so users won’t miss what matters most. “F-scanning” is a common way people consume information—essentially, they scan horizontally across the page, and then down. Understanding more about this and other common scanning patterns can help you put what’s most relevant first.

Simplicity

A cluttered dashboard might show a lot of information—but it’s useless if those looking at it don’t understand what they’re seeing. Less is more, so avoid confusing 3-D graphics or cramming too much on a page.

“Stories are remembered up to 22 times more than facts alone.”

Jennifer Aaker, General Atlantic Professor of Marketing, Stanford Graduate School of Business, The Power of Story

Congrats—you’re ready to create a beautiful KPI dashboard! But before you share it with your audience:

• Double-check that the KPIs and questions support the story you want to tell.

• Remove anything that creates clutter and doesn’t support your story.

• Confirm that your dashboard is consistent with your company design standards for items such as colors, fonts, and graphics.

• Test your visualizations with a few trusted colleagues and incorporate their feedback.

After you share your dashboard:

• Identify what's working and what's not. Take notes so that you can make improvements, and your next dashboard can be even better.

• Observe how your users are using it.

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