Data Product Dashboard Design

Data Product Dashboard Design

When to use

Use this skill when building dashboards or analytical screens for data quality, schema discovery, metadata, profiling, rule generation, validation, cleansing, quarantine, refined datasets, lineage, audit or operations.

Objective

Create dashboards that help users make decisions, investigate issues and take action without confusing operational metrics, quality evidence and governance evidence.

Procedure

1. Identify the dashboard user and decision.
2. Define the primary question the dashboard must answer.
3. Select the minimum useful metrics.
4. Show trend, current status and threshold where relevant.
5. Make filters explicit: source, domain, table, batch, rule, severity, time and owner.
6. Provide drill-down from summary to record, rule or evidence.
7. Distinguish quality status, operational status and governance status.
8. Provide clear next actions.
9. Include empty, loading, error and stale-data states.
10. Provide export or evidence links where required.

Recommended dashboard areas

Source overview, schema discovery, profiling, rule management, validation, cleansing, quarantine, refined data, lineage, audit and operations.

Recommended metrics

validation_pass_rate, validation_failure_rate, quarantine_rate, quarantine_record_count, refined_record_count, cleansing_success_rate, rule_failure_count, top_failed_rules, schema_change_count, approval_backlog_count, mean_workflow_duration, p95_workflow_duration, policy_denial_rate, source_freshness, quality_score.

Rules

• Do not create dashboards that only display data without supporting a decision.
• Do not mix unrelated metrics without grouping or explanation.
• Do not use charts where a table, status list or evidence panel is clearer.
• Do not hide denominator values behind percentages.
• Do not show stale data without a timestamp.
• Do not make users jump across multiple screens to understand a single failure.

References

• Nielsen Norman Group — Dashboard Design
• W3C WCAG 2.2 (dashboard accessibility)

Verification

• [ ] Dashboard user and decision stated.
• [ ] Metrics, filters and drill-downs documented.
• [ ] Evidence links and accessibility considerations noted.
• [ ] Residual dashboard risks stated.

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: mmccalla
• Source: mmccalla/coding-agent-skill-library
• License: Apache-2.0

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.