Dashboards for input-evaluation of policy programs: Lessons learned from an Antwerp dashboard for garden streets

There is an ever-growing trend to pursue policies based on evidence-based and data-driven program evaluation research. In order to facilitate such evaluation research, electronic dashboards are increasingly used for translating sources of big and unstructured data into low-level summary visualizations understandable by layman policy-makers. In this paper, we report on the dashboard development process for an input-evaluation of new garden streets in the city of Antwerp. During this process, different lessons
were learned. First, developers should start from a clearly defined policy question and analysis units in order to optimize the development process. Second, different types of key performance indicators exist, which should also be well-defined in advance so that appropriate data can be collected. Third, a dashboard should not be restricted to purely objective data-analyses but may also include features that facilitate subjective evaluation guided by assumptions and believes of the dashboard-user. These lessons helped us to make the dashboard requirements of Antwerp more concrete. Likewise, they may help other policy supporting dashboard developers to optimize their development processes.