Creating Effective and Interactive Visuals - Textnotes

Creating Effective and Interactive Visuals

This module teaches learners how to create interactive and insightful visualizations in Power BI. Students will explore both core and advanced visuals, understand design principles for dashboards, and practice building visuals that effectively communicate insights. Hands-on exercises focus on creating charts, tables, maps, and interactive elements.

1. Core Visuals

Bar/Column Charts: Compare values across categories

  1. Example: Total Sales per Product Category
  2. Line/Combo Charts: Show trends over time or combine two chart types
  3. Example: Monthly sales trend with Sales Amount and Profit as combo
  4. Pie/Donut Charts: Show part-to-whole relationships
  5. Example: Sales contribution per Region
  6. Tables/Matrices: Display detailed data in rows and columns
  7. Example: Customer-wise sales table
  8. Cards/KPIs: Highlight single value metrics
  9. Example: Total Revenue, Total Orders
  10. Slicers/Filters: Enable interactive filtering
  11. Example: Filter visuals by Region or Product

2. Advanced Visuals

Waterfall Chart: Analyze cumulative changes over time

  1. Example: Revenue starting from January and monthly changes to December
  2. Funnel Chart: Show stage-wise drop-off in processes
  3. Example: Sales pipeline from Leads → Opportunities → Closed Deals
  4. Maps (Basic & ArcGIS): Visualize data geographically
  5. Example: Sales per city or state on a map
  6. Custom Visuals: Use visuals from Power BI marketplace for specialized needs
  7. Example: Bullet charts, KPI gauges

3. Design Principles

  1. Use consistent colors for categories to avoid confusion
  2. Keep layout clean and intuitive
  3. Avoid misleading visuals by maintaining proper axis scales
  4. Use slicers and tooltips to enhance interactivity

Example:

  1. Avoid truncating axes in bar charts as it may exaggerate differences
  2. Use contrasting colors for different categories to make trends visible