A few weeks ago @mats on Warpcast asked what I would do to improve Dune's dashboard discovery process. While I was battling a cold, I thought about it deeply. I've always felt Dune plays a crucial role in the blockchain space, and surfacing insights becomes more necessary as it grows. Over the last month the Dune team has made progress highlighting their most active creators (aka Wizards). The most notable change is that profiles now closely resemble Github's waffle graph, showing how active creators are in addition to what they've contributed.

Highlighting activity with the waffle graph

It's definitely a step in the right direction, but here's how I feel they can take things even further:

There are some excellent Wizards in the Dune ecosystem, but no way to easily follow them or be notified of their new work. A simple notify/subscribe button would go a long way.
The recent success and implementation of starter packs across multiple social networks (Threads, Bluesky, Warpcast) is something that Dune should also be embracing. Curation is a key feature users want, and making it easy for people to follow multiple wizards, themes and queries/dashboards is something that benefits both new and experienced users.
Allow users to click into editor's picks tag so they can discover other boards that have been given the same high praise by Dune staff. In addition to this, add a dedicated editors pick section to the discover tab to make it easily accessible.
Allow users to group starred queries and dashboards by theme for easy recall. Currently you can put your own queries in folders, why not the ability to save others in this fashion or group saved queries by hashtag?
An official Dune newsletter that highlights dashboards, Wizards and site updates would help keep a variety of users up to date without having to rely entirely on social channels where things can be easily missed.

What do other analytic platforms do well?

After coming up with the list above, my next thought was, "What similar platform does this well, and what can Dune apply from them?"

In the analytics field, I'd look towards Tableau. For those not familiar, Tableau lets you create interactive dashboards from a variety of sources.

One area they do exceptionally well in is how they feature and promote their creators. Anyone who spends time building something appreciates their work being championed by the product or service they are using. The trade off is mutual. The service can boast about what their users are doing with their product, inspiring those who are curious to try it, and the people using the service can leverage the work they've created to showcase their talents and land new opportunities.

Acknowledging the differences and leaning into the similarities

While there is overlap in how Dune and Tableau deal with analytical data, they also speak to different audiences. Tableau is made to deal with more traditional data sets and has more flexibility in what you can visually output than Dune does, but both platforms have a fervent fanbase obsessed with surfacing trends with data.

Highlighting these dedicated users is what Dune should be doubling down on.

There's a prevalent narrative in crypto that encourages and supports builders onchain. Dune can contribute to this by highlighting their Wizards and showing what they've built, front and centre.

Right now, Wizards are highlighted like this:

Nothing really stands out other than the 'Open to work' tags. I want to see it pop a bit more and grab my attention with relevant details. Stars are nice, but how many of these are for their dashboards and how many are just for queries? What are each user's most popular dashboards/queries? What chain do they mainly analyze? All these points are relevant and deserve to be seen at this level.

How Dune can better incorporate these concepts

I truly believe the less clicks someone has to do to find relevant information cuts down frustrations and makes for a better overall experience. With that being said, what would a dedicated page highlighting some of these suggestions look like? Taking a page from Tableau, here's what it could look like for Dune:

Highlighting trending dashboards weekly

Trending boards with visual representation and context

Clear tags that stand out

A Wizard spotlight section, bringing attention to their work and allowing the ability for people to follow them for more

There's lots of relevant information on Dune's current landing page - all the key components are there to get a good understanding of what their product does and who it's for. They showcase some queries, but none by their community of Wizards. If Dune wants current and potential clients to benefit from their communities vast knowledge and experience, highlighting their work seems mutually beneficial. Double so for people who want to start building dashboards and learn from other more established Wizards.

Both Dune's current landing page and my suggestions work in tandem. One shows off a high level of the product and the other how the product is used. They each serve a purpose that complement each other. I know the team at Dune is constantly trying to improve their user experience & I would love to see them implement some of these features as they grow.