I believe it helps to define how "doesn't suck" is evaluated. Is it visual? UX? One suggestion is to use something like hotjar to see how users use the dashboa

I believe it helps to define how "doesn't suck" is evaluated. Is it visual? UX? One suggestion is to use something like hotjar to see how users use the dashboard (once you get something up and running), and analyze what they look for, how they use it, and what they spend a lot of time doing. This might give some ideas on how to make it easier for them to do their jobs. IMO that's the main purpose of a dashboard, so starting there makes sense to me.