Log in or create a free Rosenverse account to watch this video.
Log in Create free account100s of community videos are available to free members. Conference talks are generally available to Gold members.
Just Build Me a Dashboard!
Summary
How to bring data visualization best practices into your products, from dashboards to reports to BI tools. Learn about which charts to use when, creating accessible color palettes, and preview some new visualizations Theresa Neil has been testing in enterprise organizations.
Key Insights
-
•
Clients often request 'sexy' dashboards without clear user questions or goals, leading to ineffective visualizations.
-
•
Understanding whether a dashboard is exploratory or explanatory shapes design and chart selection.
-
•
Starting data visualization projects by focusing on users and their questions is crucial, not just the data.
-
•
Simple data presentations (like a single number with explanation) can outperform complex charts when users struggle to interpret visuals.
-
•
Using inappropriate or inherited marketing color palettes in dashboards can cause false data associations and accessibility issues.
-
•
Creating dedicated data visualization color palettes (qualitative, sequential, binary, diverging) that are accessible and brand-aligned improves interpretability.
-
•
Tools like Viz Palette enable designers to check color accessibility across chart types and color blindness variants interactively.
-
•
Advanced visualizations like multigrain charts and correlated charts help users analyze complex, temporal, or cause-effect data relationships.
-
•
Mobile and dark mode designs must be approached with different user contexts in mind, especially for operations center environments.
-
•
Effective dashboards limit the number of key metrics to tell a clear story rather than overwhelm users with all available data.
Notable Quotes
"Make me a dashboard, no matter what, is the one thing I've heard more than anything else for 20 years."
"Sexy dashboards is something I've heard from companies ranging from patent law to genomics."
"The real question is who's gonna be using this dashboard and what questions are they trying to answer."
"Our general public, even advanced enterprise users, often struggle to interpret even the most basic charts."
"Color tells you where to look. That’s why color in data visualization must be intentional."
"Inheriting marketing style guides is the biggest mistake in data visualization color use because they’re usually not appropriate."
"We don’t want ugly charts for accessibility, we want good chart colors that complement the brand and remain accessible."
"Sometimes the best answer isn’t a chart but a single number augmented with explanatory text."
"Dark mode is particularly useful in network and security operations centers where visibility in dark rooms is critical."
"You have to start with users, not the data, and force prioritization to avoid dashboard overload."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Screen readers have two modes: browse mode for navigating content and focus mode to interact with form fields or apps."
Sam ProulxEverything You Ever Wanted to Know About Screen Readers
June 11, 2021
"If you are a cohort participant and don’t see your private Slack channel, please let us know so we can guide you."
Bria AlexanderOpening Remarks
November 17, 2022
"You do not have to go publicly thank the employer who just laid you off. They’ll be fine without it."
Corey Nelson Amy SanteeLayoffs
November 15, 2022
"Designing better enterprises means creating conditions for all parts to work together coherently, like gardening rather than blaming individual plants."
Milan GuentherA Shared Language for Co-Creating Ambitious Endeavours
June 6, 2023
"Stakeholders aren’t ready to write their own briefs or manage recruitment, so it ended up being a hybrid model initially."
Erin May Roberta Dombrowski Laura Oxenfeld Brooke HintonDistributed, Democratized, Decentralized: Finding a Research Model to Support Your Org
March 10, 2022
"Accessibility is now considered not just a moral necessity and a human right but a business good because accessible products are better and easier for everyone to use."
Sam ProulxUnderstanding Screen Readers on Mobile: How And Why to Learn from Native Users
June 6, 2023
"When clients join us in the field and experience research deeply, they often become advocates who come back for more."
Mujtaba HameedThe new horizon of ethnography: using AI to unlock the full potential of in-person research
March 11, 2026
"In our information civilization, the information space that people assume to be public is actually ruled by private commercial interests for maximum profit."
Ilana LipsettAnticipating Risk, Regulating Tech: A Playbook for Ethical Technology Governance
December 10, 2021
"When we build accessibility into an environment, especially if we do it subtly, it becomes the new normal."
Samuel ProulxFrom Standards to Innovation: Why Inclusive Design Wins
September 10, 2025
Latest Books All books
Dig deeper with the Rosenbot
How does starting a vision in text before visuals improve the quality and buy-in of the vision?
How does healthcare UX balance creativity with strict regulatory compliance and safety requirements?
What strategies help UX teams translate usability findings into stakeholder-relevant outcomes like cost savings or risk reduction?