by Julia Vorontsova — Chief Marketing Officer @ Datylon
This article is part of Datylon’s data stories. We periodically share data visualization resources, best practices, and other news on our blog and via email. Sign up here to get them directly to your inbox
Are you dealing with mountains of data but struggling to make sense of it? Data visualization is the answer to all your problems. Instead of making rash decisions based on intuition, make informed choices guided by information.
Data visualization involves taking information and presenting it in a graphical context, like dashboards. There’s a treasure trove of tools available to help you if you’re not sure how or where to start.
The right data visualization tool ensures you’re able to analyze and manipulate information effectively on your dashboard. It allows you and your stakeholders to gain useful and implementable insights.
So, what data visualization tool is best for dashboards? Join us as we explore the top eight picks and why they’re important. We’ll also cover how to choose the best tool and how to make an effective dashboard.
What is a data visualization tool?
Data visualization tools help you track your progress toward achieving the benchmarks and goals of your business. They allow you to present related information using charts, graphs, and dashboards.These tools help you understand complex data, simplifying communication, and making it easier to share. They allow you to glean useful insights to improve decision-making.
Data visualization tools also save you time and resources by letting you automate dashboard generation.There are many ways to visualize data, but the most common method for businesses is using dashboards. Many companies use them in sales, web analytics, and marketing.
What are data visualization dashboards and why are they important?
The major importance of dashboards is displaying various sets of data visualizations in a single place. They typically showcase related information in an easily comprehensible manner to convey varying insights. Most dashboards incorporate important metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) you need to see and understand quickly. They’re useful to a wide range of industries thanks to their customization capabilities.
The primary goal of a data visualization dashboard is to help you make informed decisions. It simplifies evaluating, supervising, and measuring relevant information by providing a comprehensive view of multiple datasets. Dashboards are versatile tools, useful for collecting and visualizing data, making them an essential element in your business operations. They help you easily communicate opportunities, challenges, and areas in need of growth and change to stakeholders.
Using automated reporting or interactive platforms allows you to keep your dashboards up-to-date. These tools make it easier to gain a clear understanding of current events and traverse challenging developments.
How do I choose what data visualization tool is best for dashboards?
There are several factors to consider when answering the question; what data visualization tool is best for dashboards? These elements include customization capabilities, ease of use, and accessibility.
Here are the most important factors to consider:
- Customization: The best data visualization dashboard tools are customizable, accommodating your business needs. Look for software that offers various graphics and design layouts, giving you free rein over your data exploration.
- User-friendly interface: A major advantage of dashboards is their quick and easy setup. You don’t need any specialized knowledge.Choose a dashboard tool that’s easy to navigate and offers pre-made templates, like Datylon’s inspiring Report Studio. It speeds up the input of real-time visualizations.
- Performance: Ensure your dashboard tool is powerful enough to handle large datasets while still maintaining high responsiveness and speed. Opt for a scalable solution to sort and visualize data quickly. It allows your team to prioritize insights and avoid errors.
- Mobile accessibility: Having access to your dashboard on multiple platforms, especially mobile, makes extracting insights faster and more convenient.
- Integration: Find a tool that lets you connect your data sources straight to the BI solution. It helps you find relevant information to create interactive dashboards or feed automated reporting to keep up with trends. Datylon’s Report Server integrates with software like Excel, Google Sheets, and Adobe. It lets you extract answers directly from your data and present them as meaningful stories.
What data visualization tool is best for dashboards?
Many platforms offer a solution to the question; what data visualization tool is best for dashboards? We’ve compiled a list featuring top brands such as Microsoft Power BI, Google Data Studio, and, of course, Datylon.
Here’s our list of leading data visualization tools for dashboards:
Datylon
Datylon is a versatile data visualization platform that lets you craft and share engaging, on-brand data stories. It allows you to create a variety of visualizations rich with information, including dashboards, infographics, and reports.Use our Illustrator plugin to create the most captivating on-brand visualizations. Datylon lets you design freely within the Adobe workflow without requiring any coding knowledge.
Datylon offers engaging and beautiful templates for a wide range of dashboards, charts, and reports. It lets you customize them to your heart’s content with various styling options, too. You’re able to export charts, reports, and dashboards to Datylon’s web application. It allows your team to reuse them freely. We believe Datylon is the answer to the question: what data visualization tool is best for dashboards? It’s not just because of an inherent bias, it ticks the most important boxes necessary for dashboard design.
Key features
- Design beautiful data visualizations for your presentations or infographics
- Add charts to your online documents or website and automate them for updating with current data
- Embed your customized charts into your application with minimal coding
- Update data manually with a single click or using automated reporting to produce periodic dashboards and reports
- Help your end users make actionable decisions and easily understand data by designing and embedding reports
- Create dashboards and reports full of data-rich charts
- Periodically produce and reproduce up-to-date, audience personalized status reports efficiently
Pros and cons
PROS:
- User-friendly interface
- Powerful free version
- Lets you fully customize all charts, graphs, dashboards, and reports
- Integrates with Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets
- Free trial for paid plans
CONS:
- Not mobile compatible
- No interactive dashboards
- Using over 25 charts on one document slows processing
Pricing
Datylon offers a free platform and four different payment plans:
- Datylon for Illustrator professional plan: $19.95 a month per user (billed annually)
- Datylon for Illustrator premium plan: $33.25 a month per user (billed annually)
- Datylon Report Server: $285 starting monthly price (billed annually)
- Enterprise plans: Contact for custom contracts
Microsoft Power BI
Microsoft Power BI is a robust BI platform that helps you track business goals and coordinate with your data. It offers various analytical functions to enable data-driven decision-making, such as trend analysis and real-time analytics. This dashboard data visualization tool is versatile for business solutions. It has integration capabilities with various cloud services and Microsoft products. Microsoft Power BI stands out for building immersive and engaging dashboards, and protecting your information with data security features.
Key features
- Image recognition and text analytics powered by artificial intelligence (AI)
- Support for common data models
- Customization of default reporting and visualization tools
- Integration APIs
- Lets you separate complex data models for different perspectives
- Allows you to ingest and manipulate data for sharing across multiple Power BI platforms.
Pros and cons
PROS:
- Mobile compatibility
- User-friendly interface, similar to Excel
- Free version
CONS:
- Requires hefty CPU usage
- Offers complex table relationships that slow down processing and cause inaccuracies.
- Power BI has many complicated features that require technical knowledge and expertise.
- The free version doesn’t let you share reports
Pricing
Microsoft Power BI offers a free version and paid plans starting from $10 per user every month.
Tableau
Tableau is a leading analytics and data visualization platform. Its focus is on helping you explore information and share insights. It’s a flexible tool that lets you create interactive dashboards and charts.
It offers a variety of import options, such as CSV files and Salesforce data. Tableau provides you with a wide range of visualizations but using them on larger information sets is challenging. Some functions require a background in computer science to be used effectively.
Key features
- Lets you create interactive dashboards using a variety of graphics.
- Allows you to blend data from various sources.
- Connects with a wide variety of data sources.
- Offers maps filled with data including postal codes, administrative borders, and cities.
- Provides an AI-powered analytics tool to help you find relevant data.
Pros and cons
PROS:
- Gives you a wide range of data import options.
- Has powerful mapping capabilities.
- Tableau provides you with video tutorials to help you learn how to use the tool.
- Offers a free version called Tableau Public.
- Handles large datasets effectively, without sacrificing performance.
CONS:
- Its free version, Tableau Public, doesn’t keep your data private, allowing anyone to access it.
- Tableau has a steep learning curve and requires computer science knowledge to handle large datasets.
- It doesn’t have any powerful features for version control, making collaboration more challenging.
- Charges you to learn how to use the software.
Pricing
Tableau offers a free version that makes your data public. The paid plan that allows you to create visualizations and dashboards starts at $75 monthly per user.
Klipfolio
Klipfolio is a robust data analytics platform that offers an extensive gallery filled with various dashboard templates. It provides you with a wide range of technical functionalities, such as information modeling, machine learning, and formulas. It helps you gather data and create catalogs full of reliable metrics. Self-serving dashboards and reports allow end-users to explore and visualize that information. Klipfolio integrates with various data sources, letting you set up a centralized hub for up-to-date and shareable information. It helps you make effective decisions without any coding knowledge.
Key features
- Create customized dashboards useful for team and client reporting
- Compatible with pre-built data visualization tools and dashboard themes.
- Has data analytics automation functions that help you save time
- Offers various dashboard templates, including ones for social media performance and content effectiveness.
Pros and cons
PROS:
- Lets you easily identify historical patterns by tracking data over time
- Integrates with common tools, such as Asana and Basecamp 3
- Helps you view any information you want by offering powerful data filtering
- Mobile compatible
CONS:
- Some charts require programming knowledge and are difficult to create
- The free plan limits you to 10 dashboards
- Doesn’t allow you to showcase timeline data in quarterly increments.
Pricing
Klipfolio offers a free version and two paid plans, starting from $250 per month. It also offers various add-ons starting from $30 per month.
Google Data Studio (Looker Studio)
Looker Studio (formerly Google Data Studio) is a powerful tool that allows you to create customized analytical dashboards. It lets you and your teammates, or external users work on a single report in real time. Its plugin marketplace offers a wide range of visualizations that help you view data from various perspectives. Looker’s graphics simplify decision-making guided by data. Looker Studio lets you employ templates for different data using pre-made analytical blocks, which helps you speed up analysis.
Key features
- Offers templates for Google Ads and YouTube channel reports
- Transforms your data’s metrics into robust building blocks for visualizations
- Offers customizable dashboards
- Lets you share and collaborate on all the reports and dashboards you make in Data Studio
Pros and cons
PROS:
- Interface is user-friendly
- Supports a wide range of charts and graphs
- Lets you perform calculations with formulas including data-source, numerical values, and literal text fields
- Drag and drop interface
CONS:
- Doesn’t handle complex task management well
- Less customizable compared to other tools
- Visualizations heavy with data slow down the tool
Pricing
Looker Studio is a completely free-to-use tool.
How do I create a dashboard visualization?
There are many factors to consider when creating a dashboard visualization. You need to focus on elements such as your audience’s goals, picking the right graphics, and keeping it simple. There are also five main types of dashboards; operational, strategic, analytical, hybrid, and tactical. Identifying which suits your needs best is the most important consideration when getting started.
Here are the key factors to pay attention to when creating dashboard visualizations:
- Identify your audience and their goals: Ensure you know who your dashboard is for and what they need to glean from your data.
- Choose the data you want to present: Find the most relevant information for the topic you’re presenting. Ensure it’s useful to your audience and their goals.
- Double-check your sources: It’s important to ensure the data you’re using is clean and accurate before presenting it in your dashboard.
- Pick your visualizations: Find the best graphics from your library of charts and graphs to suit your needs.
- Make use of templates: Pre-made designs are helpful when you’re uncertain or new to dashboard creation. They help guide you to using visualizations that suit the data you’re presenting.
- Keep it simple: Be consistent with colors and styles, and adhere to dashboard design principals. It helps you avoid overwhelming users with too much information and clutter.
- Repeat and improve: Reiterate the process until your project meets the requirements. Request feedback from your audience. Find out if your dashboard conveyed the data you intended accurately. Improve on areas where necessary.
Frequently Asked Questions
What factors should I consider when selecting a data visualization tool for dashboards?
The most important elements to focus on are customization, ease of use, performance, accessibility, and integration.
How do I determine which data visualization tool suits my specific project or organization best?
You need to pay attention to what types of projects each tool specializes in. Look at the amount of data you need to visualize and the quantity each tool is capable of handling.
Can I integrate multiple data sources into a dashboard created with these tools?
Yes, all these dashboard visualization tools allow for integration from various data sources.
Are there any free data visualization tools that are suitable for creating dashboards?
Yes, tools like Datylon have free to use products and trials for their paid products.
Do you require any technical expertise to use these data visualization tools effectively?
Not for most of these visualization tools. For example, Datylon is easy to use without any expertise or studies.
How customizable are the dashboards created with these tools?
Many of these dashboard visualization tools are highly customizable. Datylon lets you manipulate any chart, graph, and dashboard to your heart’s content.
What kind of support and training options are available for users of these data visualization tools?
Most of these tools offer tutorial videos or help centers to aid in the learning process. Datylon has both and provides you with an in-depth onboarding process.
Can I share and collaborate on dashboards with colleagues or clients using these tools?
Yes, many of these tools allow you to share and collaborate with teammates or clients.
Design stunning, automated dashboards with Datylon
Data drives our world, helping us develop insights and make informed decisions. Sometimes you need tools to simplify the way you identify, evaluate, and act on it. Data visualization tools enable you to turn information into beautiful, graphical representations. They help you extract insights, make informed decisions, and get ahead of the pack.
What data visualization tool is best for dashboards? The one that helps you explore, communicate, and engage with information effectively. A platform that offers various features, customization options, and performance capabilities within a user-friendly interface.
Datylon offers all these features and more with stunning charts, graphs, and dashboards. All you need to consider is if it’s the right platform for you. Test our visualization tool and find out why we’re the best in the dataviz biz.
