Define user experience requirements
UX requirements help ensure your Power BI reports meet the needs of your audience. Focusing on user experience makes your reports easier to use, more accessible, and more valuable for decision-making. Consider these key areas when designing your reports.
Enable interactive exploration
Interactivity lets users engage with your report and discover insights on their own. Features like drilling, navigation, and filtering empower users to answer their own questions and find the information most relevant to them. These options make your reports more dynamic and accessible to a wider audience.
- Drill up, drill down, and drill through to details.
- Navigation within the report or to other reports.
- Filters and slicers for visuals, pages, or the whole report.
Add drillthrough buttons so users can select a sales region and see detailed transactions for that area. Drillthrough helps users with different needs find the level of detail they want, improving accessibility for everyone.
Provide flexible data access
Flexible data access empowers users to engage with your reports in ways that suit their needs and abilities. Make your reports more inclusive and valuable to a broader audience by supporting different methods of exploring and retrieving information.
- Export data as Excel or CSV files.
- Ask questions using natural language (Q&A visual).
- Set up data alerts for key values (in Power BI service dashboards).
- Link to open webpages.
- Configure actions to open applications, write back data entry values, or start workflows.
The Q&A visual lets users use natural language like, "Show me total sales by product," and instantly see a chart. This makes data accessible to users who might not be familiar with the report layout.
Support scenario analysis and customization
Scenario analysis and customization features let users test different situations and personalize their view of the data. What-if analysis and flexible layouts help users understand the effect of changes and make informed decisions. These features also make your reports more adaptable and accessible.
- What-if analysis with adjustable parameters.
- Page layouts that work across multiple pages and print well.
- Printing the report to a physical printer or as a PDF document.
Consider a what-if parameter for sales growth, which allows users to adjust the slider to see how changes in demand affect revenue, making the report more interactive and accessible for planning.
Automate delivery and encourage collaboration
Subscriptions and in-report conversations help users stay up to date and work together more effectively. These features support ongoing engagement and make your reports more valuable over time.
- Subscribing to the report so that it can be automatically delivered as a document on a scheduled basis.
- Collaboration capabilities that allow adding comments, feedback, or engaging in a conversation about the report.
As an example, report subscriptions so team members receive updated reports by email every Monday. Enable comments so users can discuss findings directly in the report, supporting accessible, collaborative decision-making.