Portrait Mode: What Is the Future of Dashboards?
We need BI tools that are easy to use and deeply collaborative. Are dashboards up to the task?
A topic that keeps cropping up in the data visualization world is the continued role of dashboards. More specifically, is there one? The question can evoke a passionate response. Dashboards have been at the heart of data visualization for as long as many practitioners can remember. But now, the craft is evolving and we need BI products that enable everyone to explore data, don’t require much effort to learn, and are deeply collaborative. Are dashboards up to the task?
Opinions vary. Chartio, for example, thinks the answer is yes. The cloud-based data analytics platform has built a new type of dashboard that the company believes reflects dashboards’ evolving capabilities. But there are alternatives, too. Count is a BI platform built solely around data notebooks, which they believe allow users the space to tell stories and communicate more nuanced findings from data.
These two companies would likely agree that traditional BI tools haven’t managed to keep up with the demands and needs of data-based companies, but have adopted different approaches for getting the most out of data in BI.
