Choose An Effective Visualisation

Data Visualisation

Power BI Desktop offers a range of out-of-the-box visualisation options that are available directly from the Visualisations pane. It is important that you choose an effective visualisation to ensure that you display the data in the best way possible.

Table And Matrix Visualisations

The table supports two dimensions and the data is flat, which means that duplicate values are displayed and not aggregated. It can also contain headers and a row for totals.

The Matrix visualisation looks similar to the table visualisation. However, it allows you to select one or more elements (rows, columns, values) in the matrix to cross-highlight other visuals on the report page. In the following image, notice that a new field called Product Color was added to the columns, and the available colours are now spanning across the table, with the categories listed in rows.

Bar And Column Charts

Power BI Desktop has a variety of bar and column chart visualisations that present specific data across different categories in a stacked or clustered format. The stacked format will stack the information items on top of each other.

Line and Area Charts

The line chart and area chart visualisations are beneficial in helping you present trends over time. The basic area chart is based on the line chart, with the area between axis and line filled in. The main difference between these two chart types is that the area chart highlights the magnitude of change over time.

Pie Charts, Donut Charts And TreeMaps

The pie chart, donut chart, and treemap visualisations show you the relationship of parts to the whole by dividing the data into segments.

Pie charts and donut charts present data by dividing it into slices, while the treemap visualisation displays data as a set of nested rectangles.