Business centric reporting on mobile devices and other smaller screen dashboards requires bespoke displays rather than the shrinking of pre-existing charts and graphs. This eBook provides ten considerations for mobile dashboard clarity to better utilise the available space.

Receiving business centric reporting via mobile devices, particularly phones, is becoming more and more commonplace. However, dashboard designs have tended more towards shrinking existing dashboard functionality, rather than creating anything bespoke to cater for the display medium.

This paper focuses exclusively on Clarity and Functionality and how they can be used for mobile device friendly dashboards. Of course, both of which are redundant if the information displayed is not accurate, this should not be forgotten.

Before we leap into what makes a good dashboard for mobile devices, just a quick point on terminology: I refer to the individual elements of a dashboard as 'Display Elements', rather than charts or graphs (except, of course, when referring specifically to a chart!).

Often a Display Element is a chart or graph but not always. RAG (Red Amber Green) statuses expressed as traffic lights or 'smiley faces' or dynamic text are some common examples. In order to keep this paper as software agnostic as possible, all illustrations have been created with a graphics package rather than any existing reporting product.

In an attempt to right this wrong, we will look at ten considerations that should be applied to all reports that will be viewed through screens with a limited size, whilst maintaining three rules of good dashboard design. 

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