How to Build Dashboards People Actually Use

A while back, I wrote a guide for GoPractice on creating marketing analytics dashboards the right way. The core principles are still just as crucial today.

Here are two that I constantly see teams struggle with:

1. Fast loading is a core feature. Dashboards must load quickly, or people will simply avoid them. When a dashboard takes over a minute to load, users will find workarounds, like exporting raw data to spreadsheets. Your BI tool becomes useless.

2. One size doesn’t fit all. Marketers, managers, and executives have different needs. Each dashboard should answer specific, business-related questions for a specific audience. Don’t cram everything into one place — it becomes cumbersome and slow.

I’ve learned a lot since writing it. The full article is on GoPractice.