A working dashboard and a well-designed dashboard are not the same thing. In this chapter you'll learn the four design principles that separate reports viewers trust from reports they ignore: visual hierarchy, alignment, whitespace, and the five-second rule. You'll also take a structured look at the Summit Gear dashboard to identify exactly what the polish pass in the next chapter will fix.

This chapter sets the mindset before the hands-on work. By the end you'll have a clear picture of why design decisions matter and a specific plan for what needs to change on each page of the dashboard.