Start with the questions
Before opening Power BI or Tableau, write down the three to five questions the dashboard must answer. Every chart should map to one of them.
Clean the data first
Most of the work happens before the first chart: fixing missing values, standardising dates and categories, and checking totals against the source.
Keep it simple
- One page, one purpose. Split big dashboards into focused pages.
- Put the key numbers at the top. Totals and trends first, details below.
- Use filters, not more charts. Let people slice by date, region or product.
Examples from our work
We have built dashboards for heart attack risk analysis, house price prediction, student performance and sales analysis. Each started with the same questions-first approach.