As one of the Bay Area's largest food banks, Alameda County Community Food Bank's mission is to passionately pursue a hunger-free community, with a vision that no adult, child or senior in Alameda County worries where their next meal will come from. What kinds of data and insights does a team conducting such critical work need? What information is useful and actionable?
When it comes to data, it can be thrilling to harness it and share insights. But for a team that has a focused mission, it's perhaps more important ever to cut out the noise and focus on the metrics that matter. In addition, let's make the data easy to update every month so it remains current and reliable.
For ACCFB, metrics that matter come down to impact. For many similar organizations, measuring pounds of food going out is the holy grail or reporting. This is essential to proving an existing need the organization is meeting and securing grant funding. When it comes to action, though, this information only tells part of the story. The ACCFB team wanted to know where to redirect resources to ensure they were achieving their objective of getting food to the right people, in the right places, at the right time.
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Design: I think of good dashboard design like shots in a movie: Start with a big picture shot that establishes for the viewer, quickly, where you are. Then zoom in on the action.
The Impact Dashboard, also called the Pulse Report, was developed to meet ACCFB's needs. The report provides a monthly snapshot (or takes a "pulse") of the health of ACCFB's various food distribution programs, by region, and to swiftly identify where to take action.
The Pulse Score is like the big picture establishing shot that tells the quick story of where we are. The viewer can quickly scan the overall number and the number for each region and decide where to "zoom in." The Pulse Score represents Total / Maximum Possible.
Note: Results shown use SAMPLE data and are NOT current/actual
Metrics that matter: Before designing a dashboard, you have to determine what you want to measure, otherwise your dashboard will be a lot of words with no story to tell. Metrics are your major plot points that shape the ultimate outcome. They also must be measurable and actionable.
Visualizations that synthesize information are essential for showing trends and prompting discussion. This report is shared and discussed at a monthly meeting, and these visualizations were designed with the audience who would be in the room in mind.
Functionality and empathy for the report coordinator: I utilized tools ACCFB currently had in place. This ensured the tool could be handed over to the team at ACCFB to update on a regular basis, when I was long gone. We used Jet Reports and SQL, and connected the dashboard (built in Excel) directly to ACCFB's database, to ensure updating this data took mere minutes and a few clicks.