According to Few, a dashboard has to serve a purpose, can be viewed on a single screen, easily understood. The dashboard may be simple, but it does show all the necessary information at a “glance” so that the hospital can see if they are meeting their goals.
Similarly, the book also states that the dashboard should show “key indicators” to achieve a purpose. The WHO dashboard has the goals/targets for each indicator. The book does include in its definition that a dashboard is usually graphical. However, it does not state that it must be graphical to be considered a dashboard. If we only consider graphs to make up a dashboard, then the WHO dashboard would not be a dashboard.
The WHO maternity dashboard does meet the Few and book criteria for a dashboard. The dashboard is not just a report that requires further analysis. The WHO dashboard is perhaps a dashboard in the simplest form.