Dashboard on Speckyboy Design Magazine https://speckyboy.com/topic/dashboard/ Resources & Inspiration for Creatives Wed, 06 Nov 2024 19:29:04 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://speckyboy.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/cropped-sdm-favicon-32x32.png Dashboard on Speckyboy Design Magazine https://speckyboy.com/topic/dashboard/ 32 32 25 Free Bootstrap Dashboard & Admin Templates for 2024 https://speckyboy.com/free-bootstrap-admin-themes/ https://speckyboy.com/free-bootstrap-admin-themes/#respond Thu, 18 Jul 2024 21:20:54 +0000 http://speckyboy.com/?p=48862 These pre-built free Bootstrap templates have been designed as a complete solution for the admin area or dashboard of your web application.

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In the past, the admin sections of web applications were often built with functionality as the only priority, with little or no consideration given to the design. Thankfully, times have changed, and in recent years, there has been a pleasing convergence of powerful functionality and beautiful design. This trend has been supported by the popularity of the Bootstrap framework, which has made it easier than ever to create attractive and functional admin dashboards.

So why use Bootstrap? With Bootstrap, you know exactly what you’re getting. It’s a mobile-first framework that is easy to customize, with pre-built design patterns and a vast library of components and widgets. More importantly, your Bootstrap build will be consistent across all screen sizes, devices, and browsers. It makes sense to use something that you know will work well when building your web application’s dashboard or admin panel.

The free Bootstrap admin and dashboard templates below have been pre-built as complete solutions, allowing you to rapidly create the front-end dashboard of your application. They include all of Bootstrap’s widgets and many additional addons, plugins, and features for charts, graphs, calendars, file managers, and more—everything you need to build powerful, professional, responsive dashboards.

You might also like our free collections of Bootstrap UI kits, Bootstrap templates, or these Tailwind CSS dashboard templates.

Bootstrap 5 Admin Templates

Star Admin 2 for Bootstrap 5 (Free)

Star Admin 2 is the latest and vastly improved version of the hugely popular Star Admin Pro. This free template is now powered by Bootstrap 5 and includes a wide range of layouts, widgets, components, and other useful features. With its new and improved functionality, Star Admin 2 is an even better tool for creating outstanding dashboards and admin panels for your web applications.

Star Admin 2 Bootstrap 5 Admin Dashboard Template Kit UI Free

Synadmin Bootstrap 5 Admin Template

The Synadmin dashboard template, powered by Bootstrap 5, is a highly versatile option for a wide range of projects. With over sixty HTML page templates and a comprehensive collection of UI components (including various charting options), this template offers great flexibility. Synadmin provides everything you need to create a top-quality dashboard or admin panel.

Synadmin Bootstrap 5 Admin UI Kit

AdminWrap Bootstrap 5 (Free)

If you’re looking for a simple, beautifully designed dashboard template with all the necessary features for building powerful and user-friendly web applications, look no further than AdminWrap. With its intuitive design and comprehensive feature set, this template provides everything you need to create an outstanding dashboard or admin panel.

AdminWrap Bootstrap Lite Bootstrap 5 Admin Dashboard Template Kit UI Free

Matrix Bootstrap 5 Admin Template (Free)

The Matrix Admin is a straightforward dashboard template powered by Bootstrap 5. While it is basic in terms of design, it offers all the essential features you need to quickly set up the backend of your web application. Matrix Admin provides a solid foundation to get you up and running quickly.

Matrix Admin Bootstrap 5 Admin Dashboard Template Kit UI Free

NobleUI Bootstrap 5 Admin Template

NobleUI is a stunning, lightweight dashboard template powered by Bootstrap 5. With its beautifully designed interface and vast collection of reusable UI components and widgets, including various charting options like ApexChart, ChartJs, Flot, Sparkline, and more, NobleUI is a highly versatile tool for creating powerful and user-friendly web applications.

NobleUI Bootstrap 5 Admin UI Kit

MaterialM Bootstrap Admin Template (Free)

MaterialM is a sleek, minimalist dashboard template powered by Bootstrap 5. With its clean, Material design, this template offers a highly efficient way to display, track, and manage your data. While a Pro version is available, the Lite version provides everything you need to get going quickly.

MaterialM Admin Bootstrap 5 Admin Dashboard Template Kit UI Free

Portal Bootstrap 5 Admin Dashboard (Free)

Portal is a clean and modern dashboard template powered by Bootstrap 5. With its modularly written code, this highly customizable template makes it easy for you to edit and tailor to the specific needs of your application. Portal provides a solid foundation for creating a sleek and user-friendly dashboard or admin panel.

Portal  Bootstrap 5 Admin Dashboard Template Kit UI Free

Rocker Bootstrap 5 Admin Template

Rocker is a comprehensive Bootstrap 5 admin template bundled with over seventy pre-built page templates. With its well-documented code and multiple color variations (including light and dark versions), this template offers great flexibility and ease of use.

Rocker Dashboard Bootstrap 5 Admin UI Kit

Adminator Bootstrap 5 Admin Dashboard Template (Free)

The Adminator is a free Bootstrap 5 Admin Template with a clean and simplistic design. It boasts a vast collection of code snippets, custom pages, components, and widgets that can be copied and pasted into your project.

Adminator Bootstrap 5 Free Admin Dashboard Template Kit UI Free

Material Dashboard 2 Bootstrap 5 Admin Template (Free)

Inspired by Google’s Material Design, this free Bootstrap 5 template has a modern design. With its 60 pre-designed components and multitude of pre-built design blocks, this template provides an excellent starting point for your next dashboard design.

Material Dashboard Free Bootstrap 5 Free Admin Template

Vue Material Design Bootstrap 5 Admin UI Kit (Free)

Vue Material Design is an admin UI kit based on Bootstrap that has been designed to help you create a Material-inspired admin dashboard with ease. With over 500 elements, hundreds of icons, and plenty of templates and tutorials, this kit provides a comprehensive set of tools for building a professional dashboard or admin panel.

Vue Material Design Bootstrap 5 Admin UI Kit Free

Bootstrap 4 Admin Templates

Vibe – Bootstrap 4 Dashboard Template (Free)

Vibe is a free React.js admin template built with Bootstrap 4. With its clean interface and extensive collection of UI elements and components, this template provides an excellent foundation for creating a highly functional dashboard or admin panel for your web application.

Vibe Free Bootstrap 4 Dashboard Template

Amanda Responsive Bootstrap 4 Admin Template

The Amanda Bootstrap 4 admin dashboard template features a sleek and professional corporate design, making it an excellent choice for a wide range of projects. With its collection of starter page templates and various chart widgets, email templates, toggle switches, time pickers, and many other components, elements, and plugins, this template provides everything you need to create a top-quality dashboard.

Amanda Bootstrap 5 Admin UI Kit Dashboard Responsive

Now UI Bootstrap 4 Dashboard Template (Free)

Now UI is an elegant Bootstrap 4 admin dashboard with a beautiful color scheme and typography. With its vast collection of pre-designed components and widgets and seven pre-built HTML page templates, this template provides everything you need to create stunning dashboards.

Now UI Bootstrap 4 Dashboard Template Free Kit

Flatkit Bootstrap 4 Admin Template

If you’re a fan of flat design, then this Bootstrap admin template is sure to catch your eye. With six pre-built layout templates and all the necessary UI elements and components, this template provides a solid foundation for creating a stylish and user-friendly admin dashboard.

Flatkit Bootstrap 5 Admin UI Kit Dashboard Responsive

CoreUI Bootstrap 4 Admin Template (Free)

CoreUI is a free Bootstrap 4 admin template with a simple and modern color scheme. It includes all the essential components you would expect from Bootstrap, such as breadcrumbs, accordions, buttons, code editors, and more. This template provides a solid foundation for building a modern and user-friendly dashboard for your web application.

CoreUI Bootstrap Admin Template Kit UI Free

Gentelella Bootstrap 4 Admin Template (Free)

Gentelella is an elegant and feature-rich admin template that offers three unique dashboard variations, a collection of starter page templates, and a comprehensive range of UI elements, forms, tables, multi-level menus, and custom pages.

Gentelella Free Bootstrap Admin Template

Light Bootstrap 4 Dashboard Template (Free)

The Light dashboard template boasts a spacious, minimal design that provides a clean, uncluttered look. With its range of features, including tables, user profiles, icons, and Google Maps integration, this template offers a comprehensive set of resources for building functional admin panels.

Light Bootstrap Dashboard Template

AdminLTE – Bootstrap 4 Admin Template (Free)

The lightweight AdminLTE Bootstrap 4 admin template comes with six pre-designed skins and includes many components, plugins, and page templates to help you quickly create a dashboard for your web application.

AdminLTE Free Bootstrap Admin Template

Bootstrap 3 Admin Templates

Bootflat Admin – Flat UI Bootstrap 3 Admin Dashboard (Free)

Bootflat Admin is an open-source flat dashboard template. It has been built on Bootstrap 3, and it comes equipped with numerous templates and UI elements that will help you design a beautiful and colorful admin interface.

Bootflat Admin Flat UI Bootstrap Admin Dashboard Kit UI Free

Bracket Bootstrap 3 Admin

Bracket Bootstrap Admin is an admin and dashboard template with a corporate look and feel. It comes with starter pages, charts, email templates, toggle switches, time pickers, and many other elements.

Bracket Bootstrap Admin

Startmin – Open Source Admin Dashboard Template for Bootstrap 3 (Free)

Startmin is an open-source admin dashboard template based on Bootstrap 3. It features a modern design and comes with charts, tables, form elements, and a useful set of starter pages.

Startmin Open Source Admin Dashboard Template for Bootstrap Kit UI Free

Admin.io Bootstrap 3 Admin Template

If you’re looking for a Bootstrap 3 admin dashboard template with material design, look no further than Admin.io. This dashboard template includes vector maps, flowcharts, graphs, icons, and styling.

Admin.io Bootstrap Admin

Paper Dashboard – Bootstrap 3 Admin Template (Free)

Paper Dashboard is a clean and minimal admin template based on Bootstrap 3. It comes with 16 different components, four customized plugins, and four example page templates.

Paper Dashboard Kit UI Free Bootstrap Admin Template

SB Admin 2 – The Original Bootstrap 3 Admin Theme (Free)

The SB Admin 2 dashboard template has an elegant corporate design. It includes many UI elements, various charts, forms, tables, and a set of demo pages that you can use as a starting point.

Kit UI Free SB Admin 2 Original Bootstrap Admin Theme

Lumino Bootstrap Admin Template (Free)

The Bootstrap 3 Lumino dashboard template has a fresh and clean design. It comes with dozens of widgets, including forms, charts, UI Elements, panels, alerts, tooltips, menus, and more.

Lumino Free Bootstrap Admin Template

Klorofil Bootstrap 3 Admin Template (Free)

The Klorofil admin template features a clean and professional design. It comes loaded with all the necessary page templates, UI elements, and components for creating any type of dashboard design.

Klorofil Free Clean Bootstrap Admin Template

Bootstrap 2 Admin Templates

RDash Bootstrap 2 AngularJS Admin Dashboard (Free)

RDash Angular has been built on Bootstrap 3 and Angular JS. It comes with a nice set of UI elements and tables and a responsive, colorful design. It’s a great choice if you need a straightforward, simple interface.

RDash Angular Bootstrap 2 AngularJS Admin Dashboard Kit UI Free

Clean Dashboard Responsive Bootstrap 2 UI Theme (Free)

As the name suggests, the Clean Dashboard template has a clean design. The Bootstrap 2 dashboard template includes several unique UI elements not usually included in the Bootstrap package.

Clean Dashboard Responsive Bootstrap 2 Kit UI Free Theme

Bootstrap Admin Template FAQs

  • What are Bootstrap Admin or Dashboard Templates?
    They are pre-designed layouts made using Bootstrap, a popular front-end framework used for creaing the user interface of the admin section of websites or applications.
  • Why Use Bootstrap Templates?
    Bootstrap is known for its responsive design and ease of use. Using these templates, you can quickly create professional-level dashboards with the assurance they’ll work well on different devices and screen sizes.
  • Do I Need to Be a Developer to Use These Templates?
    While some familiarity with web development is helpful, many templates are designed to be user-friendly. They often come with documentation to guide you through customization and setup.
  • How Customizable are These Bootstrap Templates?
    Bootstrap admin templates are typically very customizable. You can adjust colors, layouts, and components to suit your project’s needs. The level of customization depends on the specific template.
  • Can I Use These Admin Templates for Commercial Projects?
    Often, yes, but it’s important to check the licensing agreement for each template. Some may be free for personal use only, while others allow commercial use.
  • What Kind of Features Can I Expect in These Templates?
    Bootstrap admin templates often include features like charts, widgets, responsive navigation menus, and user interface elements like forms and buttons. The range of features depends on the specific template.
  • Can I Add Custom Plugins to These Templates?
    Most Bootstrap templates are designed to be flexible, allowing you to add custom plugins. However, it’s important to check compatibility to ensure smooth integration.

Conclusion

Bootstrap offers a wide range of benefits for building powerful and user-friendly dashboards. It provides a comprehensive set of pre-built UI components, is responsive, and offers a consistent and professional look and feel, making it an excellent choice for creating beautiful and highly functional admin user interfaces.

More UI Resources

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25+ Free Tailwind CSS Admin Dashboard Templates https://speckyboy.com/free-tailwind-css-admin-dashboard-templates/ Mon, 10 Jun 2024 09:30:41 +0000 https://speckyboy.com/?p=165215 A collection of the best free Tailwind CSS dashboard templates - perfect for developers looking to create responsive, customizable web projects quickly.

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As Tailwind CSS offers greater control over the design of admin dashboards this makes it the preferred choice for web developers who would rather focus on development than on aesthetics. Its utility-first approach aligns well with the need for rapid, responsive, and customizable dashboard design.

Tailwind CSS templates will save you a significant amount of development time. They come pre-designed and include a variety of layout options and components, which means you can set up your admin panel quickly without starting from scratch.

Tailwind CSS is also known for its adaptability. With its utility-first approach, you can adjust the design directly in the HTML, giving you precise control over the appearance of your admin dashboard. This makes it easier to align the dashboard’s design with your application’s overall aesthetic.

The responsiveness built into Tailwind CSS ensures that your admin dashboard will look good on any device. This is critical in today’s diverse device landscape, where you can expect users to access the panel from various devices.

Using Tailwind CSS templates also encourages consistency in design. By starting with a template, you’re adopting a set of design patterns and components that work well together, ensuring a cohesive look and feel across your admin dashboard.

The free Tailwind CSS dashboard templates we have for you here all offer a fast, flexible, and consistent solution for building the admin areas of your applications. If you want to streamline your workflow, these are the free web templates for you!


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10 Best Free WordPress Plugins for Customizing the Dashboard https://speckyboy.com/customizing-wordpress-admin/ https://speckyboy.com/customizing-wordpress-admin/#respond Sat, 08 Jun 2024 07:49:26 +0000 https://speckyboy.com/?p=95375 These free plugins feature practical customization solutions for lessening the WordPress learning curve for new users and saving admin time.

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The WordPress administration area (aka the Dashboard) can be customized in many ways. Menu items can be added, hidden, or rearranged. Access to settings can be set for specific user roles. Custom widgets can be added to help guide or pass important information on to users.

No matter what kind of tweaks you’re looking to make, there is most likely a WordPress plugin available to make it a reality. Let’s explore ten WordPress plugins you can use to personalize the Dashboard to meet your needs.

The Top WordPress Plugins for Customizing the Dashboard

White Label CMS Plugin for WordPress

A stock installation of WordPress doesn’t feel very personal. That’s why White Label CMS exists. It allows you to integrate your brand into various areas of the back end.

It starts with a custom login page, then moves on to the admin header and footer areas. But it doesn’t stop there – you can also choose which admin menus to display, and create a completely custom dashboard. As a bonus, it also works with page builders such as Beaver Builder and Elementor.

White Label CMS

Remove Dashboard Access WordPress Plugin

Remove Dashboard Access offers a solution for those who want to keep certain user roles from accessing all or parts of the back end. This is great for membership sites, where users typically have a front-end profile (optional back-end profile access is possible).

In addition, the plugin lets you redirect users to a custom URL and display an optional message on the login screen.

Remove Dashboard Access

Widget Disable for WordPress

Widget Disable works on both the front and back ends of your WordPress website. It allows administrators to easily turn off access to specific widgets.

With regards to the dashboard, it’s a great way to remove clutter for your site’s users. Too often, plugins litter the screen with widgets that are little more than advertisements. Widget Disable helps to make for a cleaner back-end experience.

Widget Disable

Catch IDs WordPress Plugin

There are times when you need to access the ID of a particular post, page, category, or user. Catch IDs is a simple plugin that makes this information readily available.

Once installed and activated, the ID number is displayed within the various admin content and user listings. Oh, and it also works for media attachments!

Catch IDs

Admin Columns for WordPress

Admin Columns is a commercial plugin (with a free version) that enables to you add custom columns to page /post listings and more.

There are over 160 columns to choose from. For example, you can easily add a featured image column to the post listing. Not only can you display various columns, but you can also sort and filter posts by them as well. It works with all content types and can integrate with lots of plugins, including Advanced Custom Fields and WooCommerce.

Simple History WordPress Plugin

Simple History doesn’t add some major functionality to the WordPress dashboard. But it sure is helpful. A widget is added to the dashboard home page that shows you which users recently added or updated posts when a widget has been added or removed or even uploaded an image to the Media Gallery.

It also tracks things like plugin activations, user profile updates, logins, and more. Very useful for administrators who want to stay on top of whom is doing what.

Simple History

Admin Menu Editor Pro for WordPress

While somewhat similar to Adminimize, Admin Menu Editor Pro does have some unique features worth checking out. For instance, not only can you hide dashboard menu items in general or by user role, you can create your own items as well.

Those custom menu items can point to any internal or external URL. The plugin also lets you move individual items to different submenus, change titles and even icons. A free version is also available.

Admin Menu Editor Pro

Custom Dashboard Widgets for WordPress

The WordPress dashboard can get a little cluttered. Custom Dashboard Widgets helps alleviate some of that clutter by allowing you to replace all the standard home page widgets with simpler versions.

Consisting of a label and a FontAwesome icon, each widget can be displayed or hidden based on a user’s role. You can also add your own custom links as well.

Custom Dashboard Widgets

Ultimate Dashboard Pro WordPress Plugin

Ultimate Dashboard Pro lets you take control of the WordPress dashboard homepage. You can easily disable any and all default widgets, as well as those from third parties.

Create your own simplified widgets with either text-only or icon-based options. The plugin is compatible with WordPress Multisite. A free version is also available.

Nested Pages WordPress Plugin

A seemingly ignored part of WordPress is the cumbersome approach to managing large amounts of pages or posts. Nested Pages is a plugin that aims to fix this by turning listings into interactive tree-style menus.

It also allows you to add pages in bulk, right from within the page listing. The slick drag-and-drop interface helps to make repositioning content less stressful. A native WordPress menu is also created and updated to match your nested structure.

Nested Pages

Make it Your Dashboard

The main idea behind tweaking the WordPress administration area is to improve your workflow. By adding helpful information and streamlining what gets displayed (and to whom it’s displayed), we’re making site management that much easier.

The plugins above feature creative and practical ideas for lessening the learning curve for new users and saving administrators loads of time.

If these plugins don’t help, you could try these WordPress snippets instead.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

  • What Are These WordPress Plugins?
    They’re plugins that allow you to modify and enhance the WordPress dashboard. You can change how it looks, add new features, rearrange the layout to better suit your workflow, or restrict users to only certain areas of the WordPress dashboard.
  • Who Should Consider Using WordPress Dashboard Customization Plugins?
    They’re great for site administrators, web developers, and anyone who wants a more personalized and efficient dashboard and may need to better manage and restrict user access to critical areas of the backend.
  • Why Customize Your WordPress Dashboard?
    Customizing your dashboard can streamline your work process, make important information more accessible, and create a more enjoyable and efficient user experience. And, make the dashboard easier for clients to use.
  • How Do These Plugins Change the Dashboard Experience?
    They can add or hide widgets and menu items, change color schemes, rearrange layout elements, and even introduce new functionalities to make managing your site easier and more intuitive.
  • Are Custom Dashboard Plugins Easy to Install and Configure?
    Yes, most of these plugins are designed for easy installation and configuration, often with drag-and-drop interfaces and simple settings.
  • Can These Plugins Improve Website Management?
    Definitely. By tailoring the dashboard to your needs, you can manage your website more effectively, with quicker access to frequently used tools and a clearer overview of your site’s analytics.

More Essential Free WordPress Plugins

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20 Beautifully Designed Admin Dashboards for Inspiration https://speckyboy.com/beautifully-designed-admin-dashboards/ https://speckyboy.com/beautifully-designed-admin-dashboards/#respond Sun, 07 Apr 2024 06:57:28 +0000 http://speckyboy.com/?p=54232 This collection showcases some beautiful, well-designed, user-friendly, and functional examples of admin dashboard design for your inspiration.

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Gone are the days when admin dashboard design was neglected and given less importance than the frontend of an application. In the past, they would function well, but their design was often outdated, resembling something from the late 1990s, with the only missing element being animated clipart.

However, times have changed. The admin dashboards we see nowadays are beautiful, as this collection demonstrates. The rise in popularity of mobile apps and the Bootstrap framework has contributed to the stunning dashboard UI designs we’ve seen in recent years.

These designs are no longer just functional but visually appealing, intuitive, and user-friendly. The clean and modern design of admin dashboards has become an essential aspect of any web application, and their aesthetics have become just as important as their functionality.

This collection showcases some of the most beautiful and well-designed admin dashboards that demonstrate how far the design process has come. So, whether you’re a web developer or a designer, take a look at these inspiring examples and see how you can create a user-friendly and visually stunning admin dashboard that will take your web application to the next level.


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20 Free Admin Dashboard UI Templates for Photoshop & Sketch https://speckyboy.com/free-admin-dashboard-templates/ https://speckyboy.com/free-admin-dashboard-templates/#comments Sun, 17 Mar 2024 08:20:00 +0000 http://speckyboy.com/?p=72774 All of these PSD and Sketch dashboard templates are free to download. They will all give you fresh ideas for your own admin designs.

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In recent years, much has changed in how web users interact with dashboard data and complete simple backend tasks. Layouts are more spacious and mobile-friendly, colors are simpler, typography is highly readable, interactive charts make data much easier to digest, and advancements in technology have made completing tasks much quicker.

If you’re looking for HTML and CSS dashboard templates, you might like to take a look at these Bootstrap-powered Dashboard templates. Or, if you’re looking for some admin panel design inspiration, try this post. But if you’re looking for dashboard templates in PSD or Sketch formats, then stick around, this is the collection for you!

All of the below dashboard templates are free to download and use, and are available in Photoshop or Sketch formats. Hopefully, they will give you some fresh ideas for your own designs.


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What You Need to Know About Designing Information Dashboards https://speckyboy.com/designing-information-dashboards/ https://speckyboy.com/designing-information-dashboards/#comments Fri, 08 Feb 2019 11:38:42 +0000 http://speckyboy.com/?p=52302 We come across information dashboards everyday in various applications we use. Have you seen a dashboard that looked plain ugly? Have you come across one that didn’t inform you, the...

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We come across information dashboards everyday in various applications we use. Have you seen a dashboard that looked plain ugly? Have you come across one that didn’t inform you, the viewer, but confused you about what it’s trying to say? Or have you seen one that you were drawn to because of how visually appealing, and how informative it is? At those times, you’ve probably thought about what makes a dashboard effective or ineffective.

In this post, we discuss some of the key ideas that data visualization experts have shared about dashboards, in the hope that it’ll help you spot a good dashboard from a bad one. And if you build dashboards, the guidelines here will help you communicate more powerfully using dashboards.


Stephen Few’s Definition of a Dashboard

Let’s begin by defining what a dashboard is. Stephen Few, the leading expert on information dashboards, defines a dashboard as follows:

“A dashboard is a visual display of the most important information needed to achieve one or more objectives; consolidated and arranged on a single screen so the information can be monitored at a glance.” – Stephen Few, Information Dashboard Design: The Effective Visual Communication of Data.

Now, that’s a mouthful. Let’s distil it to the most important words:

  • Visual display – This doesn’t mean that all dashboards need to have charts. A dashboard can be as effective with just text information in the form of KPIs. However, all dashboards are viewed by people, and a good understanding of human visual perception is important when building dashboards.
  • Most important information – Dashboards that track mundane, useless information are doomed even before anyone views them. All dashboards plot information that the viewer cares about.
  • Objectives – Every dashboard has an objective. Whether it’s to inform a viewer, or to get them to take an action, or to initiate an automated action in another application, there is an objective.
  • Single screen – This is debatable in today’s mobile-first world, where the screen sizes vary from small smartphones, to large wall-mounted displays. Still, the idea of presenting information in a concise manner holds true.
  • At a glance – A dashboard shouldn’t make the viewer jump through hoops to understand what it has to say. It needs to present information plainly, and invite the viewer to explore further if they like.

Here’s a dashboard created by Stephen Few, which stands as a great example of what an effective dashboard looks like:


Image source: PerceptualEdge.com.

Now, let’s get down to the process of building an effective dashboard. Let’s begin by discussing what are the three types of dashboards.

Dashboards for Different Audiences

One way to classify dashboards is by the audience it’s meant for. Accordingly, dashboards can be classified into three types:

  • Executive Dashboards – Also called ‘Strategic Dashboards’, These dashboards are viewed by the senior management in an organization. Their objective is to inform executives of how a company is tracking against its strategic goals. They answer the question ‘How are we doing as an organization?’ It’s common for these dashboards to have the most important KPI metrics alongside a few charts with historic data to give context to the KPIs. Based on what the KPI numbers are, executives may
    want to drill down to gather more details about the situation. Because of the hierarchy of data, it’s important for these dashboards to follow Ben Shneiderman’s Infomation-Seeking Mantra – “Overview first, zoom and filter, then details-on-demand.”
  • Analytical Dashboards – Analytical dashboards are used by Business Analysts who focus on gaining insight from data. The analyst looks at historical data to spot trends, and reasons for fluctuations in performance. They also look to predict future performance based on a variety of internal and external factors. The analyst viewing these dashboards asks the question ‘How can we meet and exceed organizational goals?’ Analysts using these dashboards are armed with specialized training, and accordingly, analytical dashboards should contain advanced interactive features that enable the analysts to get more value out of the data. It follows that these dashboards aren’t used by all employees.
  • Operational Dashboards – These dashboards are used by line-of-business managers, and the workforce on the frontline. It helps employees of a particular department be aware of goals for the team and for the company at large. It answers the question ‘Are we tracking our department goals for today?’ Operational dashboards contain only a subset of a company’s data that is relevant to the job at hand. Because of how highly focussed these dashboards are, they often contain low latency and even real-time data. Because of their importance to complete day-to-day tasks, operational dashboards should have the ability to drill down to the most minute level of detail.

Dashboards for Different Departments

Since a dashboard should contain the ‘most important information’ it’s important to define what the most important information is, for a particular department. Here are some metrics that are important to specific departments:

  • Manufacturing – Units manufactured, units by product type, cost per unit, projected orders, plant waste.
  • Sales – Leads, deals won, deals lost, average deal value, average deal time, sales by person, sales by region, sales by product.
  • Marketing – Awareness, visits, downloads, leads, cost per lead, customer acquisition costs, bounce rate.
  • Support – Total tickets, open tickets, average turn around time (TAT) , customer satisfaction (C-SAT), tickets resolved within SLA, tickets closed per person, % of issues resolved in first response.
  • HR – Attrition rate, interview closure rate, average time to hire, open positions by department, payroll breakdown.

These metrics serve as a guideline of what could be most important to each department. However, before building any dashboard, it’s necessary to take the time time to understand what matters to the viewer of your dashboard.

Now that we know what a dashboard is, the types of dashboards, and what metrics they contain, let’s look at one of the most important design principles that can make or break a dashboard.

Data-Ink Ratio

There are many principles to follow when creating dashboards, but if there’s one that stands out among the rest, it’s the principle of data-ink ratio

Data-Ink ratio is a concept introduced by Edward Tufte, one of the earliest experts in the field of data visualization. In his 1983 book, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, he says “A large share of ink on a graphic should present data-information, the ink changing as the data change. Data-ink is the non-erasable core of a graphic, the non-redundant ink arranged in response to variation in the numbers represented.”

Below is an example of the same data represented with two charts – one with low data-ink ratio, and the other with a high ratio. You’ll notice that the one with a high data-ink ratio is a lot more appealing, and communicates the story behind the data more clearly.


Image source: JesseFagan.com

With dashboards, just as with websites, less is more.

Armed with this insight, you’re now ready to go out and build effective dashboards that solve problems, rather than confuse viewers.

Do you build information dashboards frequently? Which of these ideas will have the biggest impact on your dashboards?

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Exploring the Current User Experience Trends for Admin Dashboards https://speckyboy.com/user-experience-trends-for-admin-dashboards/ https://speckyboy.com/user-experience-trends-for-admin-dashboards/#respond Sun, 16 Apr 2017 07:50:38 +0000 http://speckyboy.com/?p=35716 The design techniques for admin dashboards are not as openly shared as website layouts. This is because you do not always find examples of admin designs open on the web....

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The design techniques for admin dashboards are not as openly shared as website layouts. This is because you do not always find examples of admin designs open on the web. To gain access you would need a user/password combo, so designers are often left building with trends found in other examples. But the dashboard interface has grown very quickly as a popular layout style for administrators.

In this article I want to look into various styles and ideas for creating administration dashboard pages. These are typical website layouts built using HTML5/CSS3/JS. Except users will not ever see these designs because the admin CP is only needed for website settings, templates, or updating posts/pages. But there are still lots of exceptional designs for admin dashboards and I hope to showcase a number of trends in this article.


Tabbed Navigation

Utilizing tab buttons for page navigation has been a common trend for years. The reason it works so well in dashboard pages is because you often need to organize a lot of similar tools under the same umbrella. Using both horizontal and vertical tab menus can offer related sub-menu positions for including tons of links.

top dashboard tab navigation ui interface design

Any form of tabbed link design can work for a navbar. You do not need to handle the typical rounded corners and button interface design. More often it helps to make very simple tabs which behave as links, also using background images for icon artwork. This helps users to determine which links go to which section of the administration panel. Tabbed designs also offer a very flashy interface, using big text and bold letters will help the links stand out among other text.

top grey tabs user interface design tabbed icons

I can’t make the claim that every control panel navigation should be using tabs. If we look at WordPress’ dashboard it certainly looks more like blocks of list items compared to a tabbed navbar. And WordPress is an extremely popular CMS which goes to show any navigation can work. A good strategy is to plan out a sitemap of links and then follow those ideas to a core group of link items.

Toolbar Icons

I had briefly mentioned icons earlier but I think this design trend is important even outside of navigation. Icons are a picture symbolising the content of a link or some page information. Text requires more time for the brain to read and process what it all means, but pictures are clear and concise. I think icons should be included as interface elements on buttons, tables, headers, input fields, and really any potentially confusing areas on the page.

dashboard dark ui interface designs website admin panel

Modern designers have a much easier time building these interfaces because of the many freebie icon releases to be found online. There are so many collections built using various themes, techniques, and design styles, that you should have no problem locating a set for your admin interface. You can determine good icon placements by scanning the page for content which seems overbearing and might benefit from visual graphics.

Popover Hover Menus

There will not always be enough space on the page to include all the inputs and details you need. Sometimes a good way of handling this problem is to initially hide some features, and then display them later using a popup menu. This could be triggered on hover or by clicking a button/link on the page.

caldenar admin date popover menu jquery

You may also include popover menus for hidden input fields related to some data on the page. Administrators are often busy editing pages or adding new content into the website. This requires a lot of work and patience to put everything together. Obviously a popup block may contain a lot of data – even including modal windows using a lightbox or shadowbox effect.

mango dashboard responsive website template theme

I really like the example above labeled Mango Admin. You can hover the messages link block and it’ll display some of the messages within the inbox. This trend could be expanded for new posts, drafts, user comments, and tons of other queue systems. Any typical CMS generally requires some content management to keep everything running smoothly. By reorganizing some of this content to appear hidden on the page, it can alleviate room for a more relaxed interface.

Content Display Styles

All the various administration panels do share one thing in common – their purpose is to display information. We may also use the word “content” which can include tables, lists, buttons, graphs, really anything. The entire layout is generally focused to encapsulate this content where is it easy to read and easy to edit.

admin dashboard website layout graphics charts data

I like the small icons you can see in the table which would appear to be quick access buttons. You may quickly add, edit, or delete content from within a row of the table. And the icons are colored so you will be able to tell from a distance what they do. Of course, this is just one simple example but trends like these are hard to find. Always keep thinking of new ideas or techniques which would make your administration powers easier and simplified.

charts shopgate admin dashboard icon dribbble shit layout

It is notable that not all administration interfaces will have graphs and charts and statistics. Sometimes you will just be dealing with straight information. And even though this may seem boring, you have to think about how you will be interacting with all this data. Then you will be looking at the challenge from a user’s perception. No matter how many ideas you try out they are all worth it, because nobody has the perfect design UI and there are always new trends on the horizon.

Showcase Gallery

All of the trends listed in this article provide a nice starting point for designers. But I think you can learn a lot by studying other common examples for admin dashboards. There is a small collection of beautifully design admin dashboard designs here. You will notice some of the trends I have noted, plus you will probably discover some fresh ideas to use in your own designs.

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phpMyAdmin Turns 15 Years Old This Week! https://speckyboy.com/phpmyadmin-turns-15-years-old-week/ https://speckyboy.com/phpmyadmin-turns-15-years-old-week/#respond Thu, 12 Sep 2013 07:21:22 +0000 http://speckyboy.com/?p=43775 In an era when everything on the internet is shrinking in terms of life expectancy, be it smartphone operating systems or browser versions, phpMyAdmin, the extremely popular and often taken...

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In an era when everything on the internet is shrinking in terms of life expectancy, be it smartphone operating systems or browser versions, phpMyAdmin, the extremely popular and often taken for granted tool for administering MySQL and other related databases from a web browser, this week has turned 15 years of old!

phpMyAdmin started as a humble project with modest aspirations. Inspired by Peter Kuppelwieser’s MySQL-Webadmin, Tobias Ratschiller began work on phpMyAdmin in 1998, but later abandoned the already popular project in 2000 due to lack of time. It was eventually Olivier Müller, Marc Delisle and Loïc Chapeaux that in 2001 eventually registered phpMyAdmin at SourceForge, and development has never looked back.

phpMyAdmin Turns 15 Years Old This Week!

Today, with over 200,000 direct downloads per month, it has evolved into a gigantic concept in its own right — the number of lines of code has risen from 13,496 to 508,761, made possible by over 650 contributors from across the globe, translated into 72 languages, and the total cost of it all coming in at the relatively cheap total of $7,485,316.

Happy Birthday phpMyAdmin. All the best for the next 15!

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