Effective reports are much more than simply answering documented business questions with the available measures and columns of the dataset. Reports also need to be visually appealing and provide a logical structure that aids in navigation and readability. Business users of all backgrounds appreciate a report that is clear, concise, and aesthetically pleasing.
Now that the report-planning phase described earlier is complete, the following list of 15 visualization practices can guide the report development process:
- Avoid clutter and minimize nonessential details:
- Each visual should align with the purpose of the report—to gain insight into a business question:
- Visualizations should not represent wild guesses or functionality that the author finds interesting
- Eliminate report elements that aren't essential for gaining understanding:
- Gridlines, legends, axis labels, text boxes, and images can often be limited or removed
- The report should be understandable at a glance, without supporting documentation or explanation.
- Each visual should align with the purpose of the report—to gain insight into a business question:
- Provide simple, clear titles on report pages and visuals:
- Text boxes can be used to name or describe the report, report page, and provide the last-refreshed date
- For chart visuals, use the length of lines and the two-dimensional position of points to aid visual comprehension:
- In line charts, users can easily perceive trends and the divergence of lines relative to each other
- In column or bar charts, users can easily distinguish relative differences in the length of bars
- In scatter charts, users can quickly interpret the two-dimensional position of data points relative to each other
- Position and group visuals to provide a logical navigation across the canvas:
- The most important visuals should be positioned in the top-left corner of each report page
- If multiple visuals are closely related, consider grouping them within a shape object
- Use soft, natural colors for most visuals:
- Avoid overwhelming users with highly saturated bright or dark colors
- Only use more pronounced colors when it's necessary to make an item stand out, such as conditional formatting
- Only apply distinct colors to items in chart visuals when the colors convey meaning:
- For example, three colors might be useful for the data points of three separate product categories
- Align visuals to common and X and Y pixel positions:
- For example, if a visual in the top-left corner of a page has X and Y position values of 20 and 40, respectively, then other visuals on the left side of the canvas should also have an X Position of 20
- Likewise, the top visual(s) on the right side of the canvas should align with the left visuals at a Y position of 40
- Distribute visuals vertically and horizontally to create an equal amount of space between visuals:
- The amount of spacing should be adequate to clearly distinguish the visuals as separate entities
With one or multiple visuals selected in Power BI Desktop, a Format tab will appear on the ribbon per the following image:
- Choose a page background color that will naturally contrast with visuals, such as the default white or a very light gray.
- For column and bar charts, sort visuals by their measure to provide an implicit ranking by the given measure:
- This sorting is only applicable to nominal categories, such as product categories, when the individual items in the category don't need to follow a custom sort order
- Fill the available report canvas space; avoid large blank spaces in report pages.
- Provide supporting context via tooltips and additional lines in charts, such as target values and the min, max, and average:
- Several measures related to a given visual can be displayed via tooltips without incurring performance penalties
- The Power BI Analytics pane provides several support lines, including a trend line and a predictive forecast line
- All report pages should follow a common design theme and color palette:
- Preferably all reports in a project and even for an organization should follow the same basic design guidelines
A Switch Theme icon on the Home tab of Power BI Desktop in Report View exposes options for importing a report theme and thus overriding the default color and formatting properties:
- The quantitative scale for column and bar charts must start at zero:
- Custom quantitative scales, such as from 12% to 15%, can be applied to line, scatter, and bubble charts to emphasize specific ranges of values
- Lines should only be used to connect interval scale data points, such as time series and ordered bins of values:
- A line should not, for example, represent the sales for different product categories
- A line should, however, represent the sales of products by unit price bins (for example, $0 to $10, $10 to $20, and so forth)