The challenge
We were contacted by a fast-growing digital marketing and strategy agency based in Antwerp. As a part of their service offering, they build Google Data Studio dashboards to give their clients real-time insights in their revenue and costs, the impact of their online advertising campaigns, and their website performance.
However, something felt ‘off’. The agency was not fully satisfied with these dashboards, and had the sense that they could be improved. But they could not put their finger on what exactly was wrong with them. Committed to deliver exceptional quality, they reached out to us to help bring their client dashboards to the next level.
The process
Our approach for dashboard analysis typically comprises four steps:
- An initial, unbiased scan of the dashboard: screens, lay-out, data visuals, information architecture, UX and UI.
- An interview with the client to get to know the end user, and their specific goals when interacting with the dashboard. This defines one or more ‘use cases’ which the dashboard aims to solve as effectively as possible.
- A second, deeper scan of the dashboard focused on the specific use cases. The result is presented as a detailed report containing a list of suggested improvements, bugs we encountered, alternative chart options, mock-ups,… .
- An intense ‘co-creation’ session together with the client in which we go through this report step by step, explain our reasoning and suggestions, and allow for ‘on-the-fly’ improvements of the dashboard.
Because the agency was on a very tight schedule to deliver the dashboard to an important client, we decided to move quickly by skipping the first step of the process.
The result
In just one week, we analysed the existing 5-page dashboard and turned our findings into a 4-page report with over 100 identified problems and suggestions. These range from very minor design issues (e.g. text alignment) to major improvements to visual hierarchy, color scheme and chart interaction.
Together with the agency, we enhanced the dashboard to a much cleaner and more effective version, ready to be shipped to the client.
Do you want to perfect your own dashboard with us? Find out how we can help you.
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