How to Design the Best Data Dashboard in edTech

Student data is an extremely powerful tool for educators.

But training educators to use complicated edTech products can be cost prohibitive and inefficient for both software companies and school districts.

Even more complicated?

Proving the efficacy of your edTech product in the classroom is on the product owner.

If users can’t access or understand product data, they won’t be convinced that your learning platform offers a good solution.

Here’s what you can do to make it even easier for teachers, administrators, and parents to use robust, data-driven edTech tools—and prove your tool has what it takes to drive learning outcomes.

Download our Data Dashboard Designer ToolKit to improve your data dash and demonstrate product efficacy.

4 Metrics Your Data Dashboard Needs to Demonstrate Efficacy

In order to be successful, edTech products must enable teachers and administrators to easily track, monitor, and react to student performance data.

Otherwise, teachers are left drowning in data that isn’t actionable, and they miss out on significant takeaways about student performance.

School administrators and other key stakeholders look for a few key measures of efficacy before they make an investment in learning platforms. These include:

1. How your learning tool improves assessed learning outcomes, i.e., “hard” data

Straightforward, before-and-after data shows how students improve over time. This “hard data” is the baseline for most buyer decisions.

This is true even for products that have “softer” learning goals or outcomes, like those tied to social and emotional learning.

2. How your edTech product improves observed learning outcomes, i.e., “soft” data

In the crowded world of edTech solutions, positive observed outcomes are a powerful differentiator for many products.

Data shows how the product works, but what do real teachers say?

User observations could be as complex as expert-driven testimonials or as simple as social reviews.

Finding ways to track and display observed learning outcomes in meaningful data visualizations is a powerful addition to your product’s data dashboard.

3. Whether your tool demonstrates high engagement with users

How frequently the product is used, and for how long, matters a great deal to administrative stakeholders.

These personas also consider which elements of a product users engage with.

Are students only playing games?

Are teachers actually using the product for its intended purpose?

As you develop your data dashboard, make it easy for the right user to track and access the engagement data they need to determine whether the product is working for them.

4. Whether your product meets internal benchmarks for teacher satisfaction

Teacher satisfaction data is a key indicator for administrators who make purchasing decisions for their district.

If you create simple systems for teachers to submit feedback about their experiences using your product, you can use this data to improve your next iteration.

When you design with data visualization in mind, you’ll find more opportunities in the UX and UI to make your product more effective.

You’ll also demonstrate to buyers that you truly understand the challenges educators face in the classroom.

Data dashboards make it easier for students to track their progress, for teachers to assess student performance, and for administrators to make purchasing decisions.

It’s up to edTech designers to make these visualizations easy to understand and even more powerful to engage with.

Your Data Dashboard Designer ToolKit

School administrators, teachers, and parents need robust, actionable tools for assessing student data.

Students need their own data feedback systems, too, from engagement prompts to goal tracking.

Well-designed data dashboards offer the simplest and most elegant solutions for visualizing these key insights.

In one place, users can see how their product is performing, whether that’s within a single classroom or across an entire grade, school, or district.

After years of creating and testing data dashboards for each of these audiences, we’ve distilled our best practices for creating an engaging and effective data dashboard.

Download our Data Dashboard Designer ToolKit to improve your data dash and demonstrate product efficacy.