Breaking Free of the One-Page Dashboard Rule

By Zach Gemignani

Conventional wisdom says that an executive dashboard must fit on a single page or screen. The argument hinges on a pair of assertions about this constraint: It provides necessary discipline to focus on only the most critical information, and it enables the audience to see results “at a glance.”

The “discipline” argument is made forcefully by Avinash Kaushik (among others).

If your dashboard does not fit on one page, you have a report, not a dashboard. . . . This rule is important because it encourages rigorous thought to be applied in selecting the golden dashboard metric.²

I buy wholeheartedly into the value of constraints. However, defining a useful constraint as a “rule” assumes there is only one viable means to achieve the desired ends. Confining visual real estate is just one way to focus your thinking. There are others: How about limiting yourself to five key measures? How about...