Consider the Dashboard: Exploring a visual medium of datafication

Dashboards are central to contemporary organizations aiming to ‘datafy’ decision making and management practices. As one of the primary media through which people engage with digital data in organizational contexts, dashboards shape how data is accessed and perceived. Despite their ubiquity, there is limited understanding of how dashboards mediate data visibility and influence observers’ perceptions of the data. Drawing on theories of mediation and diagrammatics, this paper analyzes the ‘generic form’ shared by all dashboards. It then identifies the modes of observation encouraged by dashboards, revealing how they position their observers. While grounded in theoretical arguments, the analysis incorporates empirical examples from a study on the datafication of Human Resource Management. The paper makes two key contributions. It emphasizes the critical role of visual forms in datafication processes, and it highlights the organizational implications of the use of a specific kind of visual medium: the dashboard.