Let’s talk dashboards.

A lot of dashboards end up being less effective than intended.
A big reason: they’re designed like spreadsheets.

But dashboards aren’t spreadsheets — they’re stories.
And if your dashboard needs a walkthrough, it’s not doing its job.

It doesn’t matter how advanced the data is.
It doesn’t matter how pretty the charts are.

If people can’t navigate your dashboard intuitively, they won’t use it.

Today I want to share the FLOW Framework — a simple structure you can use to design dashboards that people actually understand (and then, actually use).

Picture a dashboard where everything is the same size.
Same color.
Same weight.

There’s no starting point. Your eyes bounce around because nothing is guiding you. You don’t know what it’s saying, or what you should do because of it.

Now imagine the same dashboard, but redesigned:
• One clear place to start
• Logical grouping
• Consistent visual signals
• Supporting details toned down

Same metrics.
Same data.
But this time you know what’s happening, and how to take action.

Completely different experience — just by applying FLOW.

Not more complex. Not more advanced. Just more usable.

FLOW stands for:
Focus
Layout
Organization
Weighting

Focus is about setting a clear fixation point — usually your headline metric or key performance indicator.

When someone opens your dashboard, their eyes should land on the most important thing immediately.

If everything is bold, colorful, and competing for attention… nothing stands out.

A quick test:
If you blur your eyes, does one thing still pop out?

If not, you don’t have focus.

Our brains crave structure. We understand things faster when related information is grouped together.

This is where layout matters — spacing, sections, or simple containers that help the brain process what belongs together.

When KPIs float randomly and diagnostics are scattered everywhere, the viewer has to work way too hard. Clean grouping makes the story visible.

Your job is to lower the cognitive effort.

This is the biggest reason dashboards feel confusing —
Green means “good” in one place but blue means “good” somewhere else.
Arrows point up in one chart and diagonally in another.
KPI boxes change shape for no clear reason.

People lose the mental model.

Organization is about consistency:
The same colors mean the same things.
The same shapes serve the same purpose.
The same visual patterns repeat.

When dashboards are consistent, people learn how to read them like a language.
That builds trust and reduces friction. And then naturally encourages usage.

Not every metric should carry the same visual weight.

When everything is bold and high-contrast, the dashboard becomes overwhelming — and prioritization disappears.

Weighting is how you guide attention:
• The headline metric gets the strongest emphasis
• Supporting charts are smaller
• Secondary visuals use lower contrast
• Context lives in lighter typography

If weighting is done well, the dashboard feels easy to read — and the takeaways are obvious without effort.

FLOW focuses on how you visually design a dashboard.
But what you show — the actual metrics — should come from a clear requirements process.

That’s where the Dashboard Requirements Worksheet I shared in “Why Most Dashboards Fail Before They’re Built” comes in.
It helps define the decision, the users, and the metrics needed that show clear business impact.

FLOW takes the right metrics and makes them usable, without someone needing you to explain the dashboard every time.

Get the decision right, choose the right metrics, and use visual structure to make the story obvious — that’s when dashboards start working.

Hopefully this gives you a new way to approach the dashboards you’re building.

Get the decision right.
Choose metrics deliberately.
Let the structure do the work.

That’s the difference between dashboards that get explained and dashboards that get used.

- Michelle