We use dashboards to monitor key indicators important for our business growth. Poor dashboard design may confuse the user and make all presented information incomprehensible.
Creating a dashboard that clearly communicates your key goals and metrics is not an easy task. It requires the ability to combine a smooth user experience with appealing UI to make boring analytical data easy to read and perceive.
The importance of a good design can’t be underestimated, so we picked twenty dashboard design examples to inspire you. Before you start looking at them, let’s read what a SaaS dashboard is and what user goals it covers.
What is a dashboard and what types of dashboards are there?
Dashboards are used in SaaS apps to provide customers with a quick overview of key data and metrics. Since the piles of numbers are not something people can easily grasp, dashboards tend to showcase the data visually, using graphs, pie charts, tables, maps, and so on.
Depending on the data they contain, we can divide SaaS dashboards into three types: operational, analytical, and strategic.
- Operational dashboards are the most common. Much like the dashboard on a car, they provide real-time information for operational decisions.
- Strategic dashboards show the data that is essential for long-term decision making: bird’s-eye view of KPIs, integrated data from different departments, and performance indicators in a retrospective view.
- Analytical dashboards are the most complex ones. They not only display the data, but also allow users to slice and dice it across multiple variables.
Tips to create a perfect design
Eleken is a design agency. We have a large experience in making complex things look simple with the help of minimalist and intuitive design. To create a clear and easy-to-navigate dashboard, we analyze your audience and follow innovative concepts in dashboard design. This way we ensure your dashboard communicates the most significant data for the customer in a simple and easy-to-understand way.
Each dashboard has its own purpose and conveys different kinds of information. Still, there are some common pieces of advice suitable for all types of progress reports.
- Stick to the five-second rule. It should take no more than five seconds for the user to find the most important information on the dashboard. In case you look through the data in search of a needed index for a longer period, it means the visual layout requires some improvements. The user wants to have all their questions answered as quickly as possible.
- Take care of creating a clear and logical layout. Divide all the information into three parts in descending order of importance. Put the most significant indicators on the top, continue with trends that explain the above insights and put details that allow learning the issue deeper at the end. This will make the dashboard clear and easy to read.
- Display only key metrics. Do not overwhelm the user with too many details. Human memory allows us to perceive about seven visuals at a time. A good dashboard should present from five to nine items. This amount of visualizations won’t distract the user from their goal.
- Visualize data in an appropriate way. You should organize all the information to make it easy to understand. For example, pie charts are suitable to compare several indicators, while graphs are good to track changes in trends in a timeline.
Best dashboard design examples
Now let's get down to practice and look at some effective works of designers. Here are 13 examples of dashboards created by Eleken designers for our clients from various industries.
Dashboards designs for customer relationship management (CRM) apps
TextMagic
TextMagic is a customer experience platform that hired Eleken to design some of its new features. Our scope of work also included dashboards for managers to understand chat performance and customer satisfaction.
The dashboard we designed for TextMagic belongs to operational dashboards. It provides users with real-time information for immediate decision-making.
Gridle
Gridle is a client experience platform that made an operational dashboard the first screen a user sees after opening an app. The dashboard displays the number of leads in the funnel, the number of closed deals, and other important information that helps users understand their current progress.
A dashboard screen can be overwhelming for newcomers. That’s why for new users, we created a short tour that helps them set up their workplace on Gridle. For existing users, the same place on the screen shows the upcoming activities.
Ricochet360
Ricochet360 is a cloud phone system that came to Eleken for a redesign to make the app more intuitive. Ricochet was a complex software, and its old product design didn’t make things any easier.
Working on Ricochet’s performance dashboard, we designed it in such a way that just the right amount of data appears. All the unnecessary elements had gone, while the modules are now positioned in a clear visual hierarchy, which helps sales teams to grasp the information at a glance.
Dashboards designs for human resource management (HRM) apps
Hirerise
Hirerise is an applicant tracking system. Its dashboard is the first screen users see when they open the application — it provides an overview of all the most important information.
Due to a great deal of data to be presented, we divided the dashboard into four tabs: overview, calendar, tasks, and activity. The screen you can see below is the overview tab with basic analytical figures and upcoming tasks.
Tymewise
Tymewise is a time-tracking web application. When designing a dashboard for this product, we aimed to build a simple yet informative tool that would help users spend their time more efficiently.
The daily summary was visualized with bar charts and per-user data shown in the table or on a pie chart.
PublishXI
PublishXI is a web and mobile app design for a corporate learning management system.
Its dashboard offers three types of data classified by levels: Organizational, Content, and User. On the screenshot below you can see the Organizational layout. It helps learning managers to understand how many publications the learners have viewed and how many tests they have taken.
Dashboards designs for healthcare apps
Haven diagnostics
Haven diagnostics was the first company to apply the mathematical models for projecting the infection risk used in the health industry to corporate offices. Therefore, their dashboards are very specific. They strongly differ from the screens we’ve already seen.
One of Haven diagnostics’ dashboards is dedicated to the forecast — it shows contagion graphs with future projections and can absolutely be called an analytical dashboard.
Another dashboard we made for Haven diagnostics is more typical. It shows overall risk assessment data in percentage and color.
HabitSpace
HabitSpace is an engaging mobile app that helps people track their habits and improve their quality of life. The analytics tab of the app shows users the summary of their overall progress and the completion rate for every habit.
HabitSpace is the first B2C mobile app in our list, so we tried to make it as simple and intuitive as possible, based on mobile design patterns.
Refera
Refera is a dentist referral solution with an operational dashboard that helps to see all referrals at a glance and understand what doctors and practices perform the best.
Other dashboard design examples
Koemei
There is a huge pile of video on the web, but only 1% of them have been transcribed. Koemei tries to solve the problem — it’s a SaaS platform that makes videos searchable.
For Koemei, we designed a crystal-clear dashboard that shows users two crucial metrics: the number of total searches through video content and the number of searches with results.
Habstash
Habstash is a startup that helps people navigate savings needed to buy homes.
When the company reached out to Eleken design agency, the company wanted us to display the most important information from the whole app in one dashboard. As the result, we have a screen that clearly shows users at what point of their journey to a dream house they are.
The progress bar is the central component of the page. It helps users instantly understand how much is there left to their goal.
Enroly
Enroly is a student engagement app with a complex strategic dashboard that has no analogues in its hiche. The entire squad of designers, developers and product owners racked their brains to create the screen you can see below.
Tromzo
Tromzo is a code security app with a dashboard that has two versions: full access (only for the admins) and limited access (for the whole team).
The central element of a dashboard is the graph that shows changes in the number of vulnerabilities, divided into different levels of danger.
Full access dashboard has more data and options for managing risks, such as creating tickets, changing assignments, resolving issues, and so on. To make browsing through tons of information easier, we created numerous filtering options. They make the searching as specific as possible.
Conclusion
Dashboard is usually the first screen the user sees as they log in your application. Visually stunning dashboard design is not only a beautiful picture, it is the way to convey the most important information in a simple screen.
If you want to design something that people would love to use, find out more about the way we create a great experience for your user both on the web and mobile platforms. Check our UI/UX Design Services.
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