Dashboards That Deliver: A Conversation with Amanda Makulec

About this episode

This episode features a conversation with Amanda Makulec about designing effective dashboards and data products.

In this episode, I talk with Amanda Makulec about what it really takes to design dashboards and data products that people can understand and use. We dig into why so many dashboards fail, how designers and analysts often misjudge their audiences, and what it means to take a truly human-centered approach to data visualization. Amanda shares insights from her work leading the Data Visualization Society and from her book, including practical ways to think about context, cognition, and decision-making. We also discuss common misconceptions about dashboards, stakeholder expectations, and the gap between technical correctness and real-world usefulness. This conversation is packed with ideas for anyone building data tools meant to inform decisions, not just look impressive. Subscribe to the PolicyViz Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Become a patron of the PolicyViz Podcast [https://patreon.com/policyviz?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink] for as little as a buck a month Pick up the new book, Dashboards That Deliver [https://amzn.to/3ZrFNav]. Follow me on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/jschwabish/?hl=en], LinkedIn…

People in this episode

Host: Jonathan Schwabish

Guest: Amanda Makulec

Topics covered

• dashboard design
• data visualization
• human-centered design
• stakeholder expectations
• decision-making

Keywords

• dashboards
• data products
• visualization
• design
• audience understanding
• cognition
• decision-making

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Data Visualization Society

Products: Dashboards That Deliver

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