On the lighter side of enterprise dashboard design, we look at this nifty excel dashboard example using graphics to show status or state. From the excellent excel resource site, www.contextures.com comes this great xls file download of a happy face excel dashboard. The idea is that this sample shows how an excel graphic changes in response to the entry of a different cell value. I grabbed 2 screenshots below. The first value is 95 which gives me the bright happy smile. The second worksheet shows a much lower value and hence we get the frowny face. Maybe something gimicky to lighten the day the next time you deliver an excel spreadsheet to your users? Finally KPIs that smile or frown at you!

Homework: If you need to catch up on some excel charting basics, start with Excel Charts for Dummies.

So what or who is The Dashboard Spy? As his about page states, The Dashboard Spy is just a guy interested in the design of enterprise dashboards. He could not find any executive dashboard design source books (or even screenshots of real business dashboards) and so set about creating his own. Finally convinced to post his extensive collection of dashboard screenshots online, he was amazed to find how popular it has become. If you have a nice screenshot of a digital dashboard, balanced scorecard, or any business intelligence graphic to share, please send an email to info _at_ dashboardspy.com. Also check out The Dashboard Spy’s favorite books on business dashboards.