Dashboards turn data into understanding. A well-designed dashboard shows problems at a glance.
Dashboard levels:
Executive. High-level status. Green/yellow/red indicators.
Operations. Current state. Queue depths. Active alerts.
Technical. Detailed metrics for troubleshooting.
Design principles:
Show what matters. Remove metrics that never lead to action.
Use visual hierarchy. Critical alerts at the top.
Consistent layout. Similar dashboards help operators build familiarity.
Common tools: Grafana, Kibana, built-in dashboards from monitoring platforms.