Chart Chaos to Clarity: What I Learned from The Big Book of Dashboards

When I first started building dashboards, I used to look at each chart in isolation. My goal was to make the dashboard look complete by adding as many visuals as possible. But after reading The Big Book of Dashboards, my approach completely changed. I realized that a dashboard is not a collection of charts—it’s a tool to answer specific business questions.

One of the biggest lessons I learned is to start with the question, not the data. Before, I would ask myself, “What data do we have?” and then build charts around it. Now, I ask, “What question does this dashboard need to answer?” and “How does each chart contribute to that goal?” This shift has made my dashboards simpler and more focused.

The second big learning for me was understanding the purpose of the dashboard. Not all dashboards serve the same goal. Some are meant to compare past performance with current performance, while others show how one entity compares to a group. Knowing this upfront brings clarity and consistency. It also makes dashboards more portable—you can apply the same logic across different teams, products, or regions without reinventing the wheel.

I decided to read the book because I faced a real challenge: I needed to compare vendors across multiple KPIs. At first, I tried to put nine different measurements into a single visual, and it was overwhelming. The book helped me rethink the design. Instead of forcing everything into one chart, I used multiple bar charts and simplified the cognitive load for the end users. The result? Stakeholders were happy because they could easily understand and compare the KPIs and see how filters affected vendor performance.

Since applying these principles, my dashboards have become more actionable. Stakeholders no longer ask, “What am I looking at?” Instead, they ask, “What should we do next?”—and that’s how I Started with data and end with value.