The dashboard in an army jeep is as simple as possible. It displays only a handful of critical measurements to the driver – and the thing you most need to keep an eye on gets the biggest gauge. It’s a great of example of form following function, with the resulting aesthetic purely incidental. When we talk about project dashboards, it helps to remember that we’re using a metaphor and what the reference is really about.
In a car’s dashboard, there are two types of output: 1) real-time measurements of key indicators (usually just road speed, engine revs, fuel level, engine temp, and oil pressure); and 2) alerts when key indicators reach warning points (low fuel, low oil pressure, high engine temp, etc.). With a quick glance, you can tell how fast you’re going and if any needles are in the red. If something critical happens, you may get a warning light or a buzzer to draw attention to it before smokes comes out of the hood or you run out of gas.
This is the point of the metaphor: the dashboard is an efficient way to tell you how your main metrics are doing and if there’s anything to worry about. If everything is green (or all the dials are in the safe range), then no need to read any further. If something is starting to go wrong, the dashboard should issue a warning and point you towards further detail.
It doesn’t give you any useless information, it doesn’t require a lot of additional analysis and, critically, everything is designed to be actionable.
Filed under: Margin Notes, information design
