Dashboard Insight's Best Dashboard of 2011

Congrats to Mike Moore of West Notifications Group for winning Dashboard Insight's Dashboard Design Contest. Mike chose Tableau to create his dashboard submission because he can build beautiful dashboards quickly. He ultimately won due to his top-notch data visualization and dashboard design skills.

According to Dashboard Insight, here's why he won:

• Density of information
• Use of color
• Choice of metrics to visualize

Density of information
There are two camps when it comes to the amount of information that should be displayed on a dashboard. Some believe you should cram as much information as you can into one screen, while others prefer to keep it as minimal as possible but still informative.

In the case of the contest, the end user is not an analyst, so it's best to keep the metrics as minimal as possible. Mike did a good job showing just enough so that the end user could see their spending habits and savings without overwhelming them with detail.

Use of color
Mike did well in limiting the use of color to only when he needed to highlight key areas of the dashboard. He used red to highlight metrics such as expenses that were over budget and negative balances. For any other type of information, he used tones of gray.

Choice of metrics to visualize
Mike’s dashboard listed a summary of all major expenses and assets so the dashboard shows, at a glance, account balances, mortgage, and savings.

Overall, Mike did a great job building a dashboard that is easy to use. Congrats, Mike!

Click the image to view live dashboard