I've spent the last seven years kind of building dashboards. I fundamentally believe they should not exist, in most cases, for more users, and I beg you all to stop building them.

This insight is brought to you by my portfolio along with: - In product, being early is the same as being wrong (stole that one) - What people want is not necessarily what they need - Calendars are complicated as hell and all developers underestimate their complexities

I'll never be able to condense seven years of "fucking dashboards" into anything palate-able but if you're considering them, you better be building for NASA or data scientists bc no one else needs them, in *this* age in *most* contexts. ALL UI is a "dashboard."

A bunch of y'all are still asking so a list of q's: 1. What do we need dashboards for? Actionable insights. 2. Where do those come from? It's a trick, "someone knowledgable enough to turn data/visualizations into actionable insights." 3. Is user this? Answer usually no.

A dashboard is usually running interference or used as a placeholder. Interference: "I need to study what data you have for me and think about this" Placeholder: "As a Designer, I don't know what they need so give them everything and hope they can do something with it."

If you compound that against their lowest resource, "time & energy" *which is why they're using your software solution to begin with*, it's a dud.