What makes a COVID dashboard actionable?
Of 158 public dashboards from 53 countries, only 12.7% were highly actionable; experts distilled seven shared design features.
Source
Features Constituting Actionable COVID-19 Dashboards: Descriptive Assessment and Expert Appraisal of 158 Public Web-Based COVID-19 Dashboards
Study at a glance
- Design
- Cross-sectional — Descriptive assessment + expert nominal-group scoring of public COVID-19 dashboards
- N
- N=158 · 158 dashboards from 53 countries; expert panel n=17
- Population
- Public web-based COVID-19 dashboards globally (July 2020 sample)
- Outcome
- Actionability features and prevalence of purpose/content/display practices
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What makes a COVID dashboard actionable?
These passages occur verbatim in the stored paper text. They support the points listed below; they do not verify every statement in the explanation.
158 dashboards from 53 countries assessed.
A total of 158 dashboards from 53 countries were assessed.
20/158 (12.7%) appraised as highly actionable.
In total, 20/158 dashboards (12.7%) were appraised as highly actionable, and seven common features were identified between them.
What they did
Descriptively assessed a multimethod global sample of COVID-19 dashboards (July 2020) and scored actionability with an international expert panel (n=17) using nominal group technique.
What they found
63% government-built; 58.9% national scope. Only 12.7% stated purpose and audience. Epidemiology dominated (98.1%); social/economic and behavioral indicators were rare. 24.7% omitted data sources. 20 dashboards (12.7%) were highly actionable, sharing seven features from knowing the audience to storytelling/visual cues.
The limits
What it doesn't show
July 2020 snapshot cannot judge later dashboards; expert appraisal is not a controlled trial of decision outcomes from dashboard use.
Key terms
- Actionable dashboard
- Visual data tool that supports decisions/behavior change, not just display.
- Nominal group technique
- Structured expert scoring/consensus method used here.
- Epidemiological indicators
- Case/death/spread metrics most dashboards reported.
- Data provenance
- Clear reporting of sources and methods.
- Disaggregation
- Breaking data by place, age, sex, or other subgroups.
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Dashboards assessed:
Common questions
How many dashboards?
158 from 53 countries.
Highly actionable share?
20/158 (12.7%).
Purpose + audience stated?
Only 12.7%.
Expert panel size?
17 international experts.