--- title: The Secret to Designing Beautiful Data Dashboards in Tableau description: "3 main facets of UX/UI theory to help you build easy to read, sleek, modern, and professional data dashboards that will \"wow\" your target audience." image: https://blog.continuus.ai/hubfs/2021%20Blog%20Images/The%20Secret%20to%20Designing%20Beautiful%20Data%20Dashboards%20in%20Tableau_210209/The%20Secret%20to%20Designing%20Beautiful%20Data%20Dashboards%20in%20Tableau_210209.png --- [Skip to content](https://blog.continuus.ai/design-beautiful-data-dashboards-tableau-ux-ui#main-content) [![Continuus Logo 2024 - Horizontal - Full Color - Padded-1](https://blog.continuus.ai/hs-fs/hubfs/Continuus%20Logo%202024%20-%20Horizontal%20-%20Full%20Color%20-%20Padded-1.png?width=1803&height=665&name=Continuus%20Logo%202024%20-%20Horizontal%20-%20Full%20Color%20-%20Padded-1.png)](https://www.continuus.ai/) - [Services](https://www.continuus.ai/services) - [Partners](https://www.continuus-technologies.com/partners) - Company Show submenu for Company - [About](https://www.continuus.ai/about) - [Our Team](https://www.continuus.ai/our-team) - [Careers](https://www.continuus.ai/careers) - [News](https://www.continuus.ai/news-recognition) - [Resources](https://blog.continuus-technologies.com/) - [Contact](https://www.continuus-technologies.com/contact) Open main navigation Close main navigation - [Services](https://www.continuus.ai/services) - [Partners](https://www.continuus-technologies.com/partners) - Company Show submenu for Company - [About](https://www.continuus.ai/about) - [Our Team](https://www.continuus.ai/our-team) - [Careers](https://www.continuus.ai/careers) - [News](https://www.continuus.ai/news-recognition) - [Resources](https://blog.continuus-technologies.com/) - [Contact](https://www.continuus-technologies.com/contact) [All posts](https://blog.continuus.ai/all) July 19, 2024 # The Secret to Designing Beautiful Data Dashboards in Tableau ![Picture of Continuus](https://blog.continuus.ai/hs-fs/hubfs/1-2.png?width=50&name=1-2.png) By  [Continuus](https://blog.continuus.ai/author/continuus-technologies)  ·  1 minute read [Return to Resources](https://blog.continuus.ai/) I have a secret to making dashboards look gorgeous, and I'm about to let you in on it. **The secret is to apply basic UX/UI theories to all if your designs.** I do this with almost every dashboard I create, because it gives them a more clean and modern look.  My no-longer-secret secret includes three main ideas, including: 1. Basic design elements like using an off-white background 2. Grouped “widgets” or worksheets 3. Actionable filter titles Let’s dive into these three ideas.   #### Adjust basic design elements like fonts, colors, and spacing You're probably used to publishing dashboards that look like this to your company's Tableau server: ![The Secret to Designing Beautiful Data Dashboards in Tableau_1_210209](https://blog.continuus.ai/hs-fs/hubfs/2021%20Blog%20Images/The%20Secret%20to%20Designing%20Beautiful%20Data%20Dashboards%20in%20Tableau_210209/The%20Secret%20to%20Designing%20Beautiful%20Data%20Dashboards%20in%20Tableau_1_210209.jpeg?width=750&height=513&name=The%20Secret%20to%20Designing%20Beautiful%20Data%20Dashboards%20in%20Tableau_1_210209.jpeg)   And, that looks *fine*. But, we can make it look **cleaner**. 1. Shrink the titles to 12 and bold them 2. Move all the selectable items to the top 3. Change the dashboard background to #f5f5f5 4. In the layout window: - Add a #e6e6e6 boarder to the sheets - Change the background to #ffffff - Add a 2 pixel buffer to the sheets (default is 1) That should get you a dashboard that looks more like this: ![The Secret to Designing Beautiful Data Dashboards in Tableau_2_210209](https://blog.continuus.ai/hs-fs/hubfs/2021%20Blog%20Images/The%20Secret%20to%20Designing%20Beautiful%20Data%20Dashboards%20in%20Tableau_210209/The%20Secret%20to%20Designing%20Beautiful%20Data%20Dashboards%20in%20Tableau_2_210209.jpeg?width=750&height=519&name=The%20Secret%20to%20Designing%20Beautiful%20Data%20Dashboards%20in%20Tableau_2_210209.jpeg)   #### Shared border around related worksheets If you have worksheets that are directly related, e.g. they tell the same story, you might want to put a border around them together, like so: ![The Secret to Designing Beautiful Data Dashboards in Tableau_3_210209](https://blog.continuus.ai/hs-fs/hubfs/2021%20Blog%20Images/The%20Secret%20to%20Designing%20Beautiful%20Data%20Dashboards%20in%20Tableau_210209/The%20Secret%20to%20Designing%20Beautiful%20Data%20Dashboards%20in%20Tableau_3_210209.jpeg?width=750&height=514&name=The%20Secret%20to%20Designing%20Beautiful%20Data%20Dashboards%20in%20Tableau_3_210209.jpeg)   #### Give parameters and filters actionable titles I give all parameters and filters actionable titles like “Change Date, Adjust Value, Select Category.” To achieve this, follow the same steps as above, but instead of applying the formatting at the worksheet level, you’re formatting the layout container holding your two worksheets. ![The Secret to Designing Beautiful Data Dashboards in Tableau_4_210209](https://blog.continuus.ai/hs-fs/hubfs/2021%20Blog%20Images/The%20Secret%20to%20Designing%20Beautiful%20Data%20Dashboards%20in%20Tableau_210209/The%20Secret%20to%20Designing%20Beautiful%20Data%20Dashboards%20in%20Tableau_4_210209.jpeg?width=750&height=435&name=The%20Secret%20to%20Designing%20Beautiful%20Data%20Dashboards%20in%20Tableau_4_210209.jpeg)   That’s it! That’s how I make my dashboards look clean, modern, and professional. Let us know what you think! 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