As a SaaS business owner, you have to understand user behavior and the performance of different teams to make informed decisions. Otherwise, you may not be able to develop proactive strategies to deal with upcoming challenges. It will ultimately lead to losses shortly. A SaaS dashboard can help you track key performance indicators and get actionable insights.
However, a SaaS dashboard would help only when it’s well-designed. Many business owners make some common mistakes when crafting it that affect its efficiency. In this post, we will tell you about these mistakes and how you can avoid them.
Mistakes to Avoid When Building a SaaS Dashboard
1. Cluttering the Dashboard
It is one of the most common mistakes when building a SaaS dashboard. It often happens when you fill it with too much data. This makes the dashboard overwhelming and difficult to use. Your teams will end up spending more time trying to find the relevant information instead of using the insights effectively. Multiple metrics, graphs, and charts on a single screen may lead to confusion and reduce usability.
You should keep your dashboard simple by focusing on the most important data. You can ask teams to use filters, categories, or different views to organize different data points. This will help them quickly find what they need.
2. Neglecting User Needs
Designing a dashboard without considering the needs of its users is a common mistake. If a dashboard includes data that is irrelevant to the end-user, it becomes useless. Not all users need access to the same metrics. It means a generic dashboard will fail to serve different teams or individuals.
You can avoid this mistake by conducting research or interviewing staff who will use the dashboard to learn what data they need. As a result, you can create a user-centric dashboard that delivers actionable insights.
3. Lack of Customization
You must have multiple teams working in your SaaS company. Each team will have some specific data requirements. It means, a one-size-fits-all dashboard may not work for your business. Therefore, you should avoid building dashboards that are rigid and don’t allow users to personalize what they see. A static dashboard can limit its usefulness for different teams.
You should make it customizable for users. It will allow them to view only relevant data. It’s quite simple as all you have to do is to allow them to prioritize metrics and create personalized widgets. This flexibility will increase user satisfaction and make the dashboard adaptable.
4. Using Inappropriate Visualizations
It doesn’t matter how much data your dashboard is collecting from different resources if you cannot visualize it. Using the wrong visual elements can confuse users and distort data. For example, using a pie chart to display a trend over time is misleading. Data visualization displays complex information in an easily understandable format. However, poor choices can have the opposite effect.
To avoid this mistake, you should always pick the right visual for the data. You should keep in mind that:
- Bar charts are great for comparisons.
- Line charts are suitable for identifying trends.
- Pie charts are good for showing part-to-whole relationships.
Using the charts appropriately will make visualizations simple and easy to interpret.
5. Complicated Navigation
A SaaS dashboard is specifically designed to help different teams access relevant data easily. Complex navigation is a major mistake that you should avoid when building it. If the dashboard requires your staff to click through multiple menus or go deep into different pages to find key metrics, it leads to frustration. This complexity in navigation can discourage users and they will avoid using the dashboard.
You should keep your focus on keeping the navigation straightforward and intuitive. Make sure important data is accessible by a click. You should use clear labels and provide an easy way for users to return to the main dashboard from any view.
6. Not Highlighting Key Metrics or KPIs
You can use a SaaS Dashboard to display as many metrics as you want. However, when too many metrics are displayed equally, the most important ones can get lost. It often happens when you fail to highlight these metrics or key performance indicators (KPIs). These metrics are essential for decision-making, (KPIs). It will make it difficult for users to quickly assess the overall performance and make informed decisions.
You should prioritize your KPIs and make them prominent on the dashboard. Customer lifetime value, churn rate, monthly recurring revenue, customer acquisition cost, and retention rate are some most important SaaS metrics for any business. You can use different colors or placements to make them stand out. It ensures that your staff can quickly access and understand the critical data.
Avoiding the aforementioned mistakes will help you create an efficient Dashboard that can accommodate the specific requirements of all teams. Make sure you consult with them to prioritize relevant metrics and promote informed decision-making.