Today, an app without a dashboard is hard to imagine. They have become ubiquitous. They’ve even made it into our phones’ settings in the form of visualizations of device maintenance and battery usage.
But if it used to be, “Let’s throw in a data console here to keep management happy,” you’re developing a web dashboard app today very different and challenging. In this blog we have put together everything you need to know to develop a beautiful and effective dashboard web application.
Reading: How to create a dashboard for a website
Table of Contents
1. Differences between dashboard and report
- What is a web dashboard?
- What is a report?
- Visuals vs. text
- Concise vs. longevity
- CEO vs. employees
- Dynamic vs. static
2. Reasons why you need a dashboard web application
- Empower employees
- Inform management
3. Out-of-the-box solutions vs. custom development
- Pros and cons of pre-built solutions
- Pros and cons of custom applications
4. Top 3 Out-of-the-Box and SaaS Solutions
- Google Data Studio
- Sisense
- Qlik Sense
5. How to create a custom dashboard website Tools
6. How much does it cost to create your own web dashboard?
7. Our experience in developing dashboard web applications
8. It’s time to create a web dashboard
Differences between dashboard and report
You often hear that the terms are used interchangeably in organizations , e.g. B. when someone asks where they can look up the information they are looking for, and a colleague directs them to a dashboard or report.
And I’m sure you can already feel the difference between these two, but don’t draw us the line and help you understand the ins and outs of dashboards and reports. That way you’ll know if you want to create a web-based dashboard or reports.
What is a web dashboard?
In the software realm, a dashboard is a visual element , on a view representation of the most important data points. That’s it. If your business sells medical devices and your web app shows you a chart of the top 10 items sold over the past month, this is the dashboard for you.
The key metric for whether you were successful is what percentage of your employees use this dashboard each day.
Keith Rabois
What is a report?
What if your web app from the previous example listed all medical items sold in the last month sorted by quantity? Well, that would be a report, wouldn’t it? So a report is a detailed (often textual) representation of a huge data set.
Visuals vs. Text
If you noticed, we already have it Noticed that dashboards and reports differ from each other in their definitions based on this criterion. A data console communicates data through graphics: charts, graphs, charts, etc. And reports most often come in the form of tables, where information is communicated in text form.
Conciseness vs. Longevity
Reports are long and dashboards are concise. The gurus of dashboarding, e.g. B. Stephen Few emphasize that an effective dashboard fits into a single screen:
“My insistence that a dashboard should confine its display to a single screen, with no need for scrolling or Switching between multiple screens might seem arbitrary and a bit finicky, but it’s based on a solid and practical rationale.”
Stephen Few, Information Dashboard Design
That seems like it on the surface: reports need to provide the underlying data in its entirety so users can analyze the trends, and dashboards focus on a few KPIs that are critical to a particular aspect of a company’s operations.
Related: App metrics to track
CEO vs. employees
The target audience for visualization panels and reports will also differ slightly. While both are often designed for the convenience of the C-suite, dashboards are predominantly used by higher-level managers such as CEOs. Reports are used by just about everyone: from the middle ranks to the vice president of a company.
In other words, dashboards help executives make insightful decisions, and reports provide the data for the insights.
Dynamic vs. Static
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Some argue that a dashboard typically displays dynamic content that can change in real time, and that reports contain only static data.
That’s not entirely true, as modern web apps allow for both static and dynamic reports. However, the purpose of reports is to provide a snapshot of data over a period of time, and data consoles focus on real-time data.
Reasons why you need a dashboard web application
I remember having a discussion with one of our customers where he explained his reasons for integrating a data visualization into a web application: “Because everyone loves dashboards, right?” And you know, it’s hard to argue.
“There is something magical about graphics. The profile of a curve reveals an entire situation in a flash – the life story of an epidemic, a panic, or an era of prosperity. The curve informs the mind, awakens the imagination, persuades.”
Henry D. Hubbard, Modernized Mendeleev’s Periodic Table
Dashboards are often a feast for the eyes and sometimes provide the only way out for users’ strained eyes. However, let’s take a look at the business goals you might be pursuing when planning to create a dashboard website.
Empower People
First of all, a perfectly designed and implemented data visualization panel can make your team members more productive. They can start their day by assessing the areas that need their most attention and digging into the details. With a web data console, your employees can:
- work with the same critical data points in different teams
- easily access the essential information
- on board and faster Intervene in the operations of the company
Inform management
Designing a web dashboard helps the management of the company to make important decisions faster and to keep track of what is happening in the company as a whole. Are there certain KPIs that need to be considered more closely? Are we still on course to achieve the annual targets? CEOs, vice presidents and other decision makers find comfort in being able to access key company data at a glance:
- Access the business welfare assessment at a glance
- Risks and quickly assess progress
- Share a snapshot of business data securely
Also related: The Complete Guide to Building Hospital Management Software
Out- Off-the-Box Solutions vs. Custom Development
If you’re looking to build a dashboard web application, it pays to know the alternatives. With a dashboard for your website, you can freely choose from ready-made solutions. Of course, such out-of-the-box products have some advantages and disadvantages over a custom web data panel. Let’s see which variant is most suitable for your company.
Pros and cons of ready-made solutions
A standard dashboard on the website can save you the time and money it would take to develop a dashboard application from scratch. What usually happens with pre-packaged solutions is that companies select an enterprise package tailored to their business needs and go with it.
For example, a real estate company looks for a bundled real estate analytics software called Dashboards. Once they find a suitable solution, all they have to do is fill it with actual data.
Another approach is to use a builder that allows the company to create their own web data console using existing templates. What these pre-built products lack is the flexibility to plug into any database or API to get the data for visualization.
Pros:
- Relatively easy and inexpensive to implement
- offer dashboard templates
- various chart options
- support for mobile resolutions
- integrated security
Cons:
- a -size-fits-all approach
- lack of flexibility in data sources
- Subscription costs can increase
- the cost of creating a dashboard website
difficult to update when your processes change
Advantages and disadvantages of custom dashboards
Obviously you get a lot more with it Control custom dashboards. You can make it into any shape and color imaginable, pull it from any data source, and protect the data with advanced security best practices such as: B. User role restrictions.
But such customization comes at a cost: it takes more time to develop and deploy custom data boards; Also, it usually requires a larger upfront investment compared to pre-built web dashboard solutions.
Pros:
- can be 100% optimized for your business processes
- Security , Look & Feel, mobile support etc. all depends on how much you want to invest
- can be upgraded if needed
Cons:
- requires a significant upfront investment
- takes longer to deploy
- cannot always reuse open source components
Speak to an expert to decide the right approach for you
Top 3 Out-of-the-Box and SaaS Dashboarding Solutions
Google Data Studio
Google Data Studio is a free dashboarding application that data analysts and business users can use with equal efficiency.The product integrates seamlessly with Google Marketing and consumer products such as Google Analytics or YouTube and also works with data ban (BigQuery, MySQL and PostgreSQL). , CSV files and social media platform.
- built-in sample reports
- custom theme and style controls
- rich visualization library
Sisense
Sisense focuses on streamlining the visualization of complex business data. This dashboarding SaaS solution eliminates the need for data preparation and provides all the necessary tools to visualize and analyze huge datasets without the need for IT staff assistance. Sisense works decently on fairly old machines and doesn’t require any special data warehousing setup.
- Real-time data query
- Pre-built IoT, ML and AI components
- Works with several , different data sources
QlikView
Qlik Sense is one of the leading business intelligence platforms that simplifies working with multiple complex data sources, to provide them to users with a view of actionable insights. The product allows all data to be searched and supports interaction with dynamic apps, panels and analytics suites.
- Collect data for mobile analytics
- Real-time collaboration
- state-of-the-art visualizations
How do I create a dashboard website?
Developing dashboard web applications can sounds like a trite endeavor , but is actually a complicated affair if you really want your employees to embrace the app. Here are the steps you can take to create a dashboard app.
Step 1: Find the right product for the market
First In step 1 we suggest you research the target audience for your website with dashboard. They need to narrow down their needs and pain points to understand how the dashboard web app can help them run their business more efficiently.
The best scenario to uncover this information is to conduct user surveys, observe test users working with existing tools, and conduct face-to-face interviews. The data you collect guides the functionality of your web dashboard solution. However, before developing the dashboard, you should create a quick prototype, which is the next step we recommend.
Step 2: Design
All Data you collect in the first step ensures that you are designing a website dashboard for a specific group of users. And the design when developing such a solution is everything. So it definitely helps to know which data points users need to visualize.
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Like any other software project, developing a web dashboard starts with creating rough wireframes, which depending on the user can be relatively easy to edit change are feedback. The wireframes are used to create a clickable prototype that is refined using tools like usertesting.com. This is also the stepping stone for the transition to high-fidelity design.
Related: The Only UI/UX Guidelines You Need to Design a Winning App
Step 3: Review Tools Available to Accelerate Development
After the second phase, you have an interactive prototype of the dashboard, optimized according to your audience’s preferences, which literally prompts you to start developing . However, we recommend spending time researching available toolsets that can power your web dashboard development.
Pre-built SDKs and APIs
If You want to build a web dashboard using an existing platform like Looker, check their documentation to see if they provide all the required functionality, SDKs, APIs, and libraries. For example, with Looker you can work with three SDKs that are prepared for different programming languages.
JavaScript Chart Libraries
JavaScript is a favorite tool for creating all kinds of charts. As a result, there are many proprietary and open source libraries that provide a shortcut to custom visualization apps. Here are some examples of libraries that allow creating dashboard layouts:
- Gridster.js
- jQuery Gridly
- Packery
- Dazzle
Third party integrations
What libraries, SDKs , or APIs you choose to create a dashboard website, review their integration capabilities. How well do they work with your data sources and external tools like Tableau?
Step 4: QA
Once you’ve developed a dashboard, it’s time Verify it with real users in a production environment (i.e. customer ready). In addition to verifying that all features work as intended, you should also perform load testing to determine how many users the solution can handle.
Remember to perform regression testing to ensure that all features that They tested during development continue to work flawlessly. Finally, you should set aside some time for unit testing, especially if your web dashboard goes beyond desktop browsers and supports mobile devices.
Related: QA Policies: Steps, Costs, Best Practices
Step 5: Deploy and Maintain
As with any custom mobile or web application, the final step is to deploy the dashboarding solution to a production environment, all test data to remove and set up a backup mechanism and an uptime monitor to ensure your product remains accessible to users at all times.
After that, it’s just a matter of maintenance updates to make sure you use the latest -date versions of the tools in the app architecture. This is critical to keeping the dashboard app secure.
What are you waiting for? Schedule a 30 minute consultation
How much does it cost to build your own web dashboard?
The cost of developing an app is largely dependent Scale from the cost of your project: If it’s a personal website dashboard, your budget could well be within $16,000. However, if you want to build an enterprise-grade solution, the price can go up to $60,000-$80,000.
Keep in mind that if you are building a healthcare web dashboard, you may need to build the solution create HIPAA compliant. This automatically adds another 80 hours / $8,000 to the development budget.
Another best practice for reducing dashboard app development costs is to choose pre-built components. For example, we used the Charts library and a React Native wrapper called react-native-charts-wrapper to seamlessly implement data panels in a cross-platform mobile app. p>
Also read: Respond natively or fast: What to choose for iOS?
Our experience in developing dashboard web applications
At Topflight we create applications, helping companies in the healthcare and fintech sectors stay at the top of their game. To make this possible, an app needs to surface the company’s most important data and bring it forward in the most efficient way. As such, a dashboard is often a welcome addition to web and mobile apps that we develop.
Here are some of the most exciting dashboards we’ve created for our clients.
You & M.E. ME/CFS Community Registration
We built the entire platform that connects ME/CFS patients with researchers and engages on supports data visualization. The registry consists of web applications for patients, Solve M.E. staff and researchers – each with different visualizations and a mobile app for patients that contains multiple dashboards to display patient health data.
Genium – teledermatology platform
Genium is a dermatology platform accessible via mobile and desktop browsers. The app features engaging dashboards that help customers better understand and care for their skin based on their DNA interpretation. Read the case study here.
Sherpa – Fintech Application
Sherpa is a smart budgeting app that connects to users’ bank accounts and analyzes their spending habits, calculates future budgets, and provides professional advice to help users take control of their finances. An essential part of the project was the visualization of users’ budgets and spending habits, as well as the projection of their personal financial development. Read the case study here.
Related: Fintech App Development Services
Medical Dashboard
We worked with a Fortune 100 pharmaceutical company to create a dashboard to design and develop to visualize and analyze the results of a remote clinical study.
“A dashboard must be easy to focus on “K” in KPIs.”
Pearl Zhu, the author of the book series “Digital Master” (25 books)
It’s time to create a web dashboard
Now you have everything you need to start creating beautiful, profitable web dashboards. If you are still unsure about some aspects of this challenging task, e.g. Whether it’s choosing the most appropriate tech stack, app monetization strategies, how long it takes to develop an app, or updating an existing dashboard on your website, our team is here to help. We are app developers based in Miami, NYC, Los Angeles. Request a free consultation and help you design, verify, develop and deploy a beautiful and practical dashboard.
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