Signals, not dashboards

Placeholder post — the argument, briefly.

A dashboard is a report: it aggregates the past and leaves the interpretation to the reader. That works when someone has an hour and knows what they are looking for. In a nonprofit with three staff and forty open threads, it usually means the report is read once a month, if at all.

A signal is different. It names one thing that changed, one person it concerns, and one next step — with the evidence beside it, so the reader can disagree.

The product surfaces six kinds of them: relay (something moved), attention (someone needs to act), opportunity (worth a look), healthy (nothing to do), neutral, and danger. The colour is the meaning, not decoration.

This post will be replaced with a longer version once the first release is out.