Dashboard Design articles and design guides

Dashboards are where good design goes to get cluttered. This collection is about fighting that: information hierarchy, chart selection, the 12-column grids that keep data panels aligned, and knowing when a number belongs in a big stat card versus a sparkline. We dig into KPI framing, empty states, filter patterns, and the dark-mode contrast ratios that keep analytics readable at 2am. Written for product designers and data-heavy teams who need screens that people can scan in seconds. If your users are squinting at a wall of tables, start here.

Most of what's collected here started as an argument. Does the KPI row belong above the chart or beside it? When does a plain data table beat any visualisation you could draw? Why do fintech dashboards and smart-home dashboards end up looking nothing alike, when both are just grids of numbers? We treat density, dark mode and chart selection as three separate problems, because in our experience they fail separately and get fixed separately. If you came looking for one rule that applies to every dashboard, we don't think there is one.