Dashboard Design Best Practices

Overview

A good dashboard is not just about having many charts; it's about telling a story that helps you identify issues quickly.

Design Rules

1. Focus on Metrics, Not Just Charts: Display SLIs prominently.
2. Standardize Layout: Consistent layout across all dashboards (e.g., top row for high-level status).
3. Use Appropriate Visualizations:
   • Time Series: For trends (e.g., CPU, Request Rate).
   • Gauges/Stat: For current status (e.g., current error rate, active users).
   • Heatmaps: For distribution (e.g., latency percentiles).
4. Interactive Controls: Use variables (e.g., $namespace, $environment) to make dashboards reusable.

Example: Stat Panel Query (Prometheus)

sum(rate(http_requests_total{status=~"5.."}[5m]))

Expected Visualization Result: A big red number (e.g., "120" requests/s) that immediately draws attention if it exceeds a threshold defined in the dashboard settings.