Bailiff: “All rise. The Honorable Judge Dusitwurk presiding.”
The gallery shuffles to attention. A stack of dashboards sits quietly at the defense table, glowing faintly—an accused artifact awaiting judgment.
Prosecuting Counsel:
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we are here today to prosecute a grave charge in the Court of Technology: obsolescence. The dashboard, once a proud instrument of insight, is now outdated. Rigid. Replaced by a single, superior interface: the AI chat bot. Why wade through charts when you can simply ask your data directly and receive the answer? The future is conversational.”
He spins dramatically toward the jury.
“Dashboards are dead. Obsolete displays from an era when humans needed pictures to think.”
Murmurs ripple across the gallery.
Defense Counsel:
“Opposing counsel isn’t the only one claiming the dashboard has outlived its usefulness. I’ve heard it at conferences, in hallways, across industry. But this narrative—this allegation of obsolescence—misunderstands how people think, work, and make sense of information. AI gives us new powers, but human nature hasn’t magically changed.”
The gallery leans in as the Defense Counsel steps toward the jury.
“Before this court rushes to condemn the dashboard as obsolete, let’s recall three truths about human reasoning:
1. People don’t always know what to ask. They need context to spark better, more informed questions.
2. Pure chat assumes the agent has a perfect internal model of your world—a fantasy. Real data is messy, nuanced, and full of unspoken context.
3. Data work is social. We share dashboards because we need common grounding. If everyone has their own AI-generated bespoke world, coordination collapses.
These lessons aren’t nostalgic sentiment. They’re cognitive reality.”
Defense Counsel:
“The defense calls Professor Jeffrey Heer.”
The professor sits calmly.
Defense Counsel:
“Professor Heer, why does the dashboard remain relevant in an era of AI?”
Heer:
“Because people don’t always walk in with the right question. Some come in with great questions right off the bat… but plenty show up with ambiguity or aren’t sure what to ask."
"Visuals reveal structure that a single text answer hides. Think of medical data. A conversational agent may tell you the top mortality cause, but it’s unlikely to automatically surface the context needed for real understanding, which might include co-morbidities, regional differences, outliers, or second-order effects."
The witness continued: "A good dashboard gives context. It gives us something to react to. It prompts better questions, more informed questions, follow-ups you wouldn’t have thought of. A blinking chat cursor is, quite frankly, a terrible user interface.”
Defense Counsel:
“And what about collaboration?”
Heer:
“Hugely important. Dashboards aren’t used in isolation. After looking at data, people share it. They align around a common view. But if everyone has their own AI-generated personalized world, you lose the shared coherence an organization relies on.”
Prosecuting Counsel (interrupting):
“Objection! Speculation!”
Judge Dusitwurk:
“Overruled. The court recognizes the experience of an expert witness.”
Prosecuting Counsel:
“Professor, dashboards can be rigid. Designers lock users into fixed views. Isn’t that proof—beyond reasonable doubt—that they’re obsolete?”
Heer:
“Traditional dashboards can be rigid. But paired with an AI agent, that structure becomes much more malleable. You can ask new questions, generate new charts, fold them into the view. Used together with a data agent, they become more powerful—not less.”
Prosecuting Counsel:
“So you admit the old dashboard design is outdated!”
Heer:
“Outdated? No. But ripe for improvement? Yes. Dashboards on their own have limitations—everyone knows that. But their function in sense-making remains essential. Dashboards were never meant to answer every possible question—that’s where a data agent comes in to expand the range of follow-up questions and long-tail requests. It’s not an either/or situation. They work best together.”
The gallery erupts in whispers.
Prosecuting Counsel:
“The witness admits the dashboard metaphor is aging. AI is flexible, powerful, omnipresent. The dashboard stands guilty of technological obsolescence!”
Defense Counsel:
“The prosecution wants a world where a chat box replaces human cognition, collaboration, and context. But people are social and situational. We need grounding. We need shared understanding.
Ladies and gentlemen, the future is not dashboards or agents. It’s dashboards and agents—systems that preserve what works about visual cognition while embracing new opportunities for taking action with data.”
Judge Dusitwurk:
“The Court finds the Dashboard…”
(Everyone leans forward.)
“…NOT OBSOLETE.”
Gavel bangs.
The dashboard lives. Maybe changed. Maybe improved, with AI. But not guilty of obsolescence.
Case closed.
