Updated August 2026
So you need…
Dashboard Design Services
The Datalabs Agency designs dashboards people actually use every day, built as working tools people rely on, not boardroom decoration. Since 2012 we have designed dashboards and BI style guides for clients including Mercedes-Benz, Adidas, and UPS, in whichever platform your data already lives in.
The short version
What does a dashboard design service actually do?
A dashboard design service turns disconnected reports into one dashboard people actually read — the right chart types for the data, a clear visual hierarchy, and a layout built around the decisions your team makes. When those decisions are campaign ones — what to pause, where to move budget — that is a marketing dashboard every week with it.
The Datalabs Agency is a Melbourne-based data visualization consultancy founded in 2012 that delivers corporate training workshops (Power BI, Tableau, data storytelling), dashboard design, and BI style guides for clients including Mercedes-Benz, Adidas, and UPS.
Not locked to one platform
Do you only design Power BI dashboards?
No. We design dashboards in Power BI, Tableau, Excel, and PowerPoint, and the design work — layout, hierarchy, colour, chart choice — comes first regardless of the platform. If you specifically want a build-out inside one tool, we have a dedicated page for it.
Design and software are two different jobs, and treating them as one is a common reason corporate dashboards are technically correct and still hard to read. Our process starts with the question the dashboard has to answer, then chooses the chart types, layout, and colour system that answer it fastest — the platform gets picked to fit the data, never the reverse. Power BI and Tableau are common enough on their own to deserve dedicated pages: see our Power BI dashboard design page for a build inside that platform, or our Tableau dashboard design page for a Tableau-specific project. This page covers the design service more broadly, across whatever tool your data already lives in.
Questions & Answers
Dashboard design services
Wireframes before colour
What happens in a dashboard design project?
We start with your existing reports and data sources, then design the visual hierarchy — what to show first, what to group, what to drop — before touching colour or chart type. You review working wireframes, then get a finished dashboard built in your platform of choice.
Consistency matters as much as any single dashboard, especially once a team has more than one. That is why many design projects also produce a BI style guide — a shared reference for colour, typography, and chart conventions, so every dashboard built afterwards looks consistent instead of carrying five different analysts’ personal taste.
What actually goes wrong
Why do so many dashboards go unused?
Most unused dashboards were built starting from whichever data was easiest to pull rather than the decision someone needed to make. Too many metrics on one screen, no visual hierarchy, and no consistent colour or chart system across the business are the three patterns we see most often in the audits we run before a redesign.
It comes down to communication design more than software. Most teams go straight to the software and treat the layout as whatever the tool defaults to; deciding what the reader sees first, and cutting everything that does not change a decision, is the part a specialist design pass adds — the same underlying data, arranged so someone can read it and act on it in under a minute.
The three failure patterns
Why most dashboards go unread
Most dashboards fail for the same reason a badly organised report fails: someone spent all their effort assembling the numbers and none of it deciding what the reader should notice first. We see this pattern constantly — a dashboard carrying every metric the business tracks on one screen, no visual hierarchy, and no quick way to tell whether last week was good or bad.
The fix is rarely more data or a fancier chart library. It is design — deciding what matters most, placing it where the eye lands first, and cutting whatever does not change a decision. We work through three questions before a single chart gets drawn: what decision does this dashboard support, who is making it, and how often will they actually look at it.
Consistency compounds the problem across a team. One analyst designs in blue and green, the next reuses the company brand palette, a third keeps whatever the software defaulted to, and within a year the business has a dozen dashboards that look like they came from a dozen different companies. That is why many of our design projects also produce a BI style guide — the same colour system, chart types, and layout conventions applied to everything built afterwards, well beyond the one dashboard we design directly.
We have designed dashboards and BI style guides since 2012 for clients including Mercedes-Benz, Adidas, and UPS. Our founder learned visual storytelling at National Geographic before bringing it to corporate dashboards, and that shows up in a specific way: we design for the person reading the dashboard under time pressure, not the analyst who already knows the data by heart.
None of this requires switching tools. The same design work happens in whatever platform your data already lives in — Power BI, Tableau, Excel, or PowerPoint — because the design decisions come first and the software is simply where they get built.
Three ways to get there
Templates, training, or a design service — which fits?
The right approach depends on whether your team needs one dashboard, an in-house skill, or both.
| Criterion | Templates | Team workshop | Design service |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who builds it | You, from a template | Your team, taught live | The Datalabs Agency |
| Built around your own data | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Ongoing skill stays in-house | — | ✓ | — |
| Best for | A single simple dashboard | Teams who want the skill long-term | Dashboards that need to be right, on a deadline |
Templates and the design service are not exclusive — many clients start with the workshop to build in-house skill, then commission a design pass to raise the bar on the dashboards that matter most.
Stage by stage…
How a dashboard design project runs
Every project starts with the reports and data your team already has instead of a blank page. We review what exists, talk to the people who will actually use the finished dashboard, and work out what decision it needs to support — that single question shapes almost every design choice that follows.
From there we design the visual hierarchy before we touch colour or chart type: what the reader sees first, what gets grouped together, and what gets cut entirely. Everything crammed onto one screen is usually a sign nobody made that call deliberately, so we make it on purpose and show it to you as a wireframe before any of it gets built.
Once the layout is signed off, we build the finished dashboard in your platform — Power BI, Tableau, Excel, or PowerPoint — applying one consistent colour and chart system across it, instead of each screen carrying its own improvised choices. Teams that want that consistency to extend beyond a single dashboard usually add a BI style guide to the project, so the next dashboard someone on your team builds follows the same rules automatically.
We also run this the other way around. Teams that want the skill in-house start with our Designing Great Dashboards workshop instead, then bring us in for a design pass once they have built a few dashboards themselves and know where the gaps sit. Both paths end at the same place — dashboards people actually read — they simply start from different points.
A finished project includes the working dashboard file, source assets, and a short handover walkthrough with whoever on your team maintains it, so you are not dependent on us for small changes afterwards. If your data changes shape later or a new source gets added, that is ordinary maintenance — a separate conversation from the original design.
The Data Design Firm for AI & Visualization
The Datalabs Agency
Templates, guides, grids, icons…
Creative Design Assets »
Learn visualization and storytelling skills…
« Beautiful Courses in Data Design
Some of the notable brands Otto has worked with…
Otto Ottinger’s Clients of Note
Professional & Thought-provoking
Looking for a speaker for your event?
"*" indicates required fields