As enterprises and other organizations look to sift through and make sense of the all the structured and unstructured data available to them, dashboards are being positioned as the solution to their problems. However, a dashboard needs special attention to the visual design or the dashboard will fail to meet expectations. If not carefully designed, a new dashboard can leave consumers unsatisfied, frustrated, confused, and even overwhelmed. Aaron Hursman shares his experiences designing effective dashboards that deliver on the promise of targeted, accessible, and actionable information. He discusses examples from both his personal work and contributions of thought-leaders in this space. Through these examples, he presents practical dashboard design techniques. He also presents effective approaches to take during design and construction. Finally, Aaron explains the challenges and obstacles that dashboard designers face today, and how to mitigate the risks that result. [Originally presented to RefreshDallas, 16 Oct 2008]