The Dashboard Nobody Uses
Government agencies and economic development organizations have more data than ever: employment statistics, demographic trends, real estate inventories, infrastructure assessments, business climate indicators. They also have expensive data portals that nobody visits.
The problem isn't the data. It's the design. Most data portals are built by the people closest to the data — analysts and IT departments who understand every field and every relationship. The resulting interface reflects that expertise: dense tables, complex filters, jargon-heavy labels, and no clear entry point for someone who just wants an answer to a simple question.
Design for the Question, Not the Dataset
The fundamental shift we bring to data portal projects is user-centered: instead of asking "What data do we have?" we ask "What questions do people come here to answer?"
A site selector evaluating your region doesn't want to browse a database. They want to know: What's the available workforce? What are the utility costs? Are there shovel-ready sites? What incentives are available?
Those questions become the information architecture. Each one gets a clear, visual answer — with the ability to drill into underlying data for users who want depth.
The Technical Approach
Our data portals are built on the same Directus + Nuxt stack we use for everything else, with the addition of interactive mapping (Mapbox GL), chart libraries (D3.js or Chart.js), and real-time data connections to source databases.
Key technical decisions that improve usability:
- Progressive disclosure — show the headline number first, let users drill into details on demand
- Spatial context — everything that has a location gets a map, not just a table
- Comparative framing — numbers mean nothing without context. Show benchmarks, trends, and peer comparisons
- Mobile-first — decision-makers check data on their phones. If your portal doesn't work on mobile, it doesn't work
The Measure of Success
A data portal succeeds when non-technical users voluntarily return to it. Not because they're required to, but because it answers their questions faster than any alternative. That's the bar we design to.