Report Card

A report card is the smallest unit of a board: a self-contained frame showing one metric or one chart with its title and context.

A report card is the building block of every dashboard, and that modularity is its power: each card answers one question, and boards are built by placing cards together. A good card is self-sufficient — a clear title, a big number, and context saying whether the number is good or bad (a comparison to the prior period, say) — so the reader grasps it without going elsewhere. The common trap is a context-less card: a number sitting alone with no clear reference is a meaningless number. The metric-card convention exists exactly for this: a name, icon and note, a big number and its share of the whole, and a delta chip for the change. A report card should not get too busy; if one card answers three questions, it should really be three cards.