The Dashboard Five Second Rule™ couldn’t be simpler.
Glance at your BI dashboard for 5 seconds, then look away. If you remember the specifics of what was important, you’re good. If not, then time to rethink your dashboard.
If you can quickly determine that “margin is doing better than last year” or “we are short of our quota,” then great – at a basic level, your dashboard’s user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) are performing their roles. But, if you actually have to take time to think about and analyze the data, the dashboard is not properly serving its purpose. In other words, you’re wasting precious time.