monday.com board design best practices: Reducing clutter and improving usability
Our team created boards that are technically correct but nobody uses them. Too many columns, unclear status labels, overwhelming views. What's the best practice for designing boards that are intuitive? Looking for: - Optimal number of columns - Status workflow best practices - Grouping strategies - View recommendations for different use cases
2 Answers
Here's our board design framework used with 50+ client teams: Column Limit: Maximum 8 columns per board. If you need more, create sub-board or separate boards. Users mentally check out with too many visible columns. Status Columns: Use maximum 5-6 statuses. Our standard: Not Started → In Progress → In Review → Done → Blocked. Avoid custom colors that don't match status meaning (red = bad, green = good). Grouping Strategy: - By Status: For execution teams - By Assignee: For individual workload view - By Project/Client: For project managers Views per board: Maximum 3. We recommend: - List view (default, for data entry) - Board view (Kanban, for workflow) - Timeline/Gantt (for planning) Testing: Before launching board, have 3 team members try to add an item without instructions. If they struggle, simplify.
Adding one more principle: Use the 'First View' setting. Default to the view 80% of users need. Most teams default to List but actually work best in Kanban. Check your analytics to see which view is most used, then set that as default.