⏱️ Slide Timing: 1 min - Goal for today: simple rules of thumb to make reports look clean and read fast - no design background assumed - Everything here applies to Power BI, but also Excel, Tableau, slides - By the end: a checklist you can run on your own assignment report

⏱️ Slide Timing: 2 min - Most beginner reports have correct numbers but are hard to read - visuals scattered, every chart a different colour, no titles - Design is not decoration — it is how you remove effort for the reader - The 5-second test: show your page to a friend for 5 seconds, ask what the main message was

⏱️ Slide Timing: 3 min - Ask students to write their one-sentence purpose for their assignment report - Everything later (placement, colour, chart type) follows from these answers - If a visual does not help answer the question — remove it

⏱️ Slide Timing: 0.5 min - Six principles: placement, rule of thirds, balance, proximity, contrast, repetition

⏱️ Slide Timing: 2 min - Same way we read a page of text — a "Z" scan - Common mistake: slicers taking the whole top-left corner - the most valuable spot is spent on a filter, not an insight - Bottom-right is the least-seen spot — good for footnotes, data source, refresh date

⏱️ Slide Timing: 2 min - Borrowed from photography — intersections attract attention naturally - Practical use: size visuals in thirds (1/3 + 2/3 width) instead of random widths - Power BI: View → Gridlines helps you see the canvas grid

⏱️ Slide Timing: 2 min - Don't measure precisely — use it as a sense check - Example in picture: KPI cards + map on left (smaller), bar chart on right (larger) - Quick check: squint at your page — does one area feel crowded?

⏱️ Slide Timing: 2 min - Readers assume things close together are related - e.g. Sales KPI next to the Sales trend chart, Cost KPI next to Cost chart - Whitespace is free — beginners tend to fill every pixel

⏱️ Slide Timing: 2 min - Example: grey bars for all products, one accent colour for the product you want to talk about - Size contrast: the KPI value big, the label small

⏱️ Slide Timing: 2 min - If "Online" is blue on page 1, it must be blue on page 3 as well - Power BI tools: Format Painter (Home tab), and a report Theme (View → Themes) - Consistency is the quickest way to look "professional"

⏱️ Slide Timing: 0.5 min - Don't start from a blank canvas — start from a proven template

⏱️ Slide Timing: 2 min - Mirrors how a manager reads: "How are we doing?" → "Why?" → "Which ones?" - This one layout works for most assignments - Very detailed tables can move to a drill-through page instead

⏱️ Slide Timing: 1 min - Four KPI cards on top, four equal visuals below - Arrows: keep gaps the SAME size, both horizontally and vertically - Each visual has its own short title

⏱️ Slide Timing: 1 min - Six KPI cards, six visuals — denser, for analyst audiences - Upper limit for one page — more than this becomes clutter

⏱️ Slide Timing: 3 min - Left: tall bar chart on left spans two rows; trend + table share the right - Right: KPI row, three charts, then a wide table across two columns - Ask students: what do both have in common? (KPI row on top, equal gaps, titles on every visual, limited colours)

⏱️ Slide Timing: 0.5 min - Layout gets attention; the right chart gets understanding

⏱️ Slide Timing: 3 min - Start from the question, not from the visual you like the look of - Time always goes left → right on the x-axis - Sort bar charts by value (largest first) unless categories have a natural order

⏱️ Slide Timing: 2 min - Point at the example: Sales $K with Δ plan and Δ 2021, only the deltas are coloured - Power BI: new Card visual supports reference labels; or the KPI visual (value + target + trend) - Consistent number format across cards — all $K or all $M, not mixed

⏱️ Slide Timing: 3 min - Humans compare lengths far better than angles — that is why bars beat pies - Line charts may start above 0 (focus on change); bar charts should not - Too many series: split into small multiples, or highlight one and grey the rest

⏱️ Slide Timing: 0.5 min - The finishing touches that separate an "ok" report from a clear one

⏱️ Slide Timing: 3 min - Power BI: View → Themes, pick one and stick with it; avoid the default rainbow when it adds no meaning - Red/green together is the most common colour-blind problem — add ▲▼ or + / − signs - Conditional formatting in tables is great, but limit to one or two columns

⏱️ Slide Timing: 3 min - Power BI: Format → Display units and Value decimal places - Rename fields so titles read naturally (Sum of SalesAmt → Sales) - rename in the visual's field well, or in the model - Accessibility: Power BI has alt text on each visual (Format → General → Alt text)

⏱️ Slide Timing: 2 min - "Data-ink ratio" (Edward Tufte): maximise ink spent on data, minimise decoration - If a page needs more than ~7 visuals, split into another page or use drill-through - Exercise: remove one thing from your report — does anyone miss it?

⏱️ Slide Timing: 3 min - Demo if time: select 3 cards → Format → Align top → Distribute horizontally - Selection pane also sets the tab order for keyboard / screen reader users - Edit interactions: stop a KPI card from being filtered by a chart click when it shouldn't be

⏱️ Slide Timing: 2 min - Interactivity lets one clean page replace many cluttered ones - Same slicer on every page? Use Sync slicers (View → Sync slicers) - Test: click every visual — does the cross-filtering make sense?

⏱️ Slide Timing: 2 min - Power BI: Insert → Buttons → Navigator → Page navigator builds the buttons automatically - Drill-through pages get a Back button automatically when you add a drill-through field - Right-click a page tab → Hide page - Users get lost when the header jumps around between pages — repetition principle again

⏱️ Slide Timing: 2 min - Use this list on every assignment page before submitting - Pair up: swap laptops and run the checklist on each other's report

⏱️ Slide Timing: 1 min - If they remember one thing: design for the reader, not for yourself

⏱️ Slide Timing: 1 min - Highest priority: the Microsoft Learn module — short, with exercises - Storytelling with Data is the most beginner-friendly book on the topic

⏱️ Slide Timing: 5 min - Invite a student to share their report page; run the checklist live together - Common questions to expect - "Can I use custom visuals?" — yes, but only if a built-in one can't do the job - "Dark or light background?" — either; consistency and contrast matter more