Data Science ยท Chapter 39 of 43

Dashboards & BI Tools

DASHBOARDS give stakeholders live views of the numbers that matter. Popular tools: Power BI, Tableau, Looker, Metabase.

Good dashboards focus on decisions โ€” not every possible chart.

Example 1 (python)
# 5 KPIs at top, 2 comparisons in middle, 1 detail table at bottom

A clean dashboard layout.

Example 2 (python)
# Use consistent colours: green = good, red = bad

Colour conventions matter.

Key points

  • Focus on decisions, not everything.
  • Consistent colours and units.
  • Refresh frequency should match the decision.
  • Explain the metric in a tooltip.
๐Ÿ’ก Note: The best dashboards are the ones people actually open every day โ€” measure usage, not just clicks to build.

๐Ÿ“ Quick Quiz

1. Popular BI tools include:

2. Good dashboards focus on:

3. Colour conventions help: