Microsoft Power BI: The Art of Designing Incredible Tools

In this lesson, student s will receive an overview of why business intelligence can be a complicated career choice and why a large percentage of BI projects result in failure.  The lesson will recap what business intelligence teams are trying to build for their companies and what most businesses are seeking when they hire BI professionals to build data tools.  Prior to beginning the curriculum focused on designing amazing BI tools, this lesson also encourages students to expand their thinking of what it means to be a BI developer.

Are you designing insanely complex layouts in Power BI using shapes and text boxes?  What if I told you there is a better way.  In this demo, learn how to rethink the way that you're designing Power BI layouts in order to unlock endless design possibilities.  You will never look at layouts the same way again...

If you find yourself looking for design inspiration when building BI tools, your employer could be a great place to start.  Most companies are fully of great design resources and helpful guidance for your BI tools.  From logos to color palettes and legacy data tools that have were helpful once but have since been retired, your company is probably a treasure trove of information and inspiration if you know where to look.

In this lesson, you will learn why a business intelligence developer should even be concerned with making smart design choices in the first places.  This lecture will cover a variety of very common design mistakes to avoid and outline some good techniques to keep in mind when developing BI tools.  Finally, you will receive an introduction to the mind-blowing concepts behind Gestalt psychology and the important role that Gestalt techniques can play in elevating not just the design of your Power BI tools, but the design of almost anything else you could think of building.

Gestalt techniques alone won't necessarily make you an incredible BI developer but they can be extraordinarily helpful in making you a much more effective one.  In this video, learn how to apply simple Gestalt practices in order to create clean, simple, and visually impactful Power BI tools. 

There is an art to designing amazing business intelligence tools and newer BI developers can be prone to making a variety of common design mistakes.  In this video, learn some of the most common design issues in Power BI and how to fix them.  Not only will fixing this mistakes make you a much better developer, it will make your tools look more professional and ensure that your BI users have the best experience possible.

Have you ever seen a BI tool that made you stop and take notice of the colors used, whether it be for good reasons or bad?  This lesson will introduce you to some of the core concepts of color theory and how they can be used in BI tool design to ensure that your users are always seeing what you want them to see.  You will learn a variety of important tips for avoiding problematic color choices and finding the colors that will work best in your BI tool.

Struggling to figure out which colors to use in your BI tool?  Wrestling with which color combinations go well together and how to make sure you're always choosing a web-safe palette?  In this demo, learn how to create a custom Power BI color palette and explore some online resources that can help you pick bold, vibrant, and accessible color palettes that will make your reports stand out from the crowd.

Color can make or break a BI tool and is one of the most powerful stylistic elements we have at our disposal.  From data visualization to layout design, color finds its way into almost everything we do, so we need to make sure that we are always deploying color strategically so that we can maximize its impact across each tool we build.  In this video, learn to identify ten common color mistakes and how to correct them. 

The difference between data reporting and business intelligence is narrative.  Reporting simply visualizes the facts as represented by the data but it's completely up to business users to interpret those figures or data visuals and decide when and what to act upon.  Business intelligence is all about transforming data and insights into stories that help drive informed decision-making.  In this lesson, learn what separates data storytelling from traditional storytelling, the sorts of decisions our businesses need to make, which stories we will often find ourselves telling as BI professionals, and the role that layout and presentation can play in making these narratives more impactful.

In this video, learn how to design amazing landing pages for your Power BI tools to help your users maximize their experience and minimize the number of annoying questions they will have for you later.  In this quick demo, we will evaluate some of the quick and easy features that a landing page can have, go over some quick design tips, and examine how to create a quick summary page with descriptive information focused on helping your users navigate your tool.

If you're like Sean, you can't wait to get your hands on new data and start building data visuals.  In this video, however, we will discuss why that is not always the best idea by identifying a few key considerations you need to make before you start telling your story.  All sorts of variables can determine the best course of action for telling your story, from the complexity of the data model to the data fluency of your users.  Fortunately, you can save yourself a lot of future headaches by pondering ten important items before you start developing.

There's nothing better in business intelligence than a huge dataset, right?  The more variety in our data, the more possibilities at our disposal for rich storytelling.  But how do we break down the different types of data and what roles do different data types play in our narrative?  In this lesson, learn how to transform raw data into storytelling elements and how to make the most of your story with some simple data visualization & design techniques.  Plus, learn about two of Sean's favorite Power BI storytelling features:  Report page tooltips and bookmarks!

...And on the seventh day, God rested, but on the eighth day He realized, "Oops, I forgot to create Power BI bookmarks, so He did".  Power BI bookmarks are that incredible!  If you are serious about taking your Microsoft Power BI skills to the next level, this incredible design tool is the key to creating bespoke user experiences that expertly guide users through your data with endless possibilities.  Join Sean for a quick demo as he shows you how to get started with this absolutely incredible feature.

Remember when Sean said this wasn't a data visualization class?  Well, he lied.  Kind of.  Data visualization is at the heart of everything we do in Microsoft Power BI so it's important to understand how some of the concepts in this course (Gestalt psychology, color theory, etc.) also play significant roles in designing impactful data visuals.  In this Top 10, learn how to design incredible data visuals that will help you tell meaningful data stories as efficiently as possible.

Boy, do I have news for you.  If you thought you were "just a BI developer" because your job title says "BI Developer", you could not be more wrong.  Most of our users will consume the amazing Power BI tools we build at home or in the office on their personal devices... laptops, desktops, tablets, phones, etc.  That effectively makes us all web developers in a sense and it means we also need to know how to implement some basic web design features in order to maximize the experience that our users have when consuming our BI tools in their browsers.  In this lesson, learn some tips and tricks about web design & interactivity and best practices for ensuring your users have the best possible web-based experience.

In this demo, learn how to build drill-through pages (not to be confused with drill-down visuals) in Power BI.  Although perhaps a less popular Power BI feature compared to bookmarks and tooltip pages, drill-through pages can be a fantastic way to help your users select specific datapoints of interest and learn more about them dynamically without sacrificing filter capabilities or storytelling depth.  And the best part?  They're relatively easy to set up, so let's get started!

You've made it this far, but now it's time to start fitting together the pieces.  Join Sean for a lesson-length demo in which he walks through the entire Power BI design process, from designing a landing page to creating buttons and bookmarks.  In this demo, Sean uses an open-source UFO sightings dataset to frame a full-length Power BI build that is truly out of this world.  Don't forget to download the finished .pbix file so that you can open it up and follow along during the video!

In this lesson, learn a few relatively simple design tricks that can elevate your user experience and help you deliver even more cool functionality to your BI users.  From designing a custom slicer window to stepping up your hover game, this lesson of demos has some relatively easy techniques for you to consider deploying in your next BI build.  And the best part?  No DAX necessary! 

We all know our users want 5 slicers on the first version, 10 slicers on the second version, and 50 slicers on the third version of your BI tool.  So how do we manage all of those slicers and still have room on the page for data visuals?  By creating a custom slicer panel!  With this technique you can create a collapsible slicer pane that your users will love to engage as they filter their way to the insights they need.  No code necessary and this trick can be deployed in only 10 or 15 minutes if you know what you're doing!

Are your users constantly pestering you with "obvious" questions?  Where do I find this?  What does this button do?  How do I do x, y, and z?  This technique will teach you how to deploy a custom tutorial solution to your BI tools that your users can open with the click of a button, understand how your tool works, close the window, and keep working.  And since they won't be bombarding you with questions/emails/chats/meetings, guess what!  You can get back to doing what you were hired to do:  Googling more Power BI tricks.

Did you think hovering is just for tooltips?  Well, then, prepare to be astonished when you unlock the full power of hover capabilities in buttons!  Okay, it's really not that exciting.  However, hovering is a great mode of interactivity for your users to help them feel confident in navigating your Power BI tool and consuming its rich insights.  Learn how to think outside of the box with button hovers by rethinking how you create navigation buttons and how to get more from your card visuals.

By now, you're probably sold on bookmarks.  The greatest thing since sliced bread?  Maybe.  Sean would probably say "absolutely".  However, what do you do if you have multiple bookmark functionality on the same page?  How do you keep one family of bookmarks from undoing or contradicting the other bookmarks on the page?  If you've created buttons and bookmarks to swap data visuals on the report page, how do you keep the users' bookmark selections from reverting when they open a custom slicer pane?  This lesson is honestly a little technical and dry but, trust me, you will be happy to know this easy solution when you run into this problem.

In this extra demo, let's walk through another finished Power BI report so that we can observe the key aspects of a completed, interactive BI tool.  In this brief walkthrough, we will observe how the design concepts and usability features discussed in this course come together to create a polished, aesthetically pleasing tool that transforms a large, complex dataset into a high-performing and simple user experience.

Congratulations on completing the course.  In this summary video, we will revisit all the topics covered in this course and restate the primary takeaways from each lesson.  Sean will also outline a selection of great readings and articles for you to read to continue your education and identify a few great ways to continuing honing your Power BI development skills.  Thank you so much for completing Microsoft Power BI: The Art of Designing Incredible Tools.