When creating data visualisations, effective Power BI colour selection is crucial to ensuring your reports are both visually appealing and easy to interpret. The right colour choices can make a significant impact on readability, accessibility, and how your data is understood. Below are seven astonishing tips for effective Power BI colour selection that will help you enhance the clarity and effectiveness of your visualisations.
1. Understand the Purpose of Your Visualisation
Before you dive into effective Power BI colour selection, it’s essential to understand the purpose of your visualisation. Are you trying to highlight key insights, establish a mood, or align with branding guidelines? Each of these goals may require different colour strategies. For example, using bold colours to draw attention to critical data points can be highly effective in dashboards that require immediate decision-making. Conversely, more subdued colours might be appropriate for reports that are meant to be read thoroughly and interpreted slowly.
2. Consider the Data Type
Different types of data require different colour strategies. For categorical data, use distinct and easily distinguishable colours. For example, if you are visualising different regions or categories, make sure that each is represented by a unique colour that users can easily differentiate. For sequential data, such as sales growth over time, a gradient from light to dark of a single hue works best. When your data has a midpoint, such as profit and loss, a diverging colour scheme is an effective Power BI colour selection strategy to highlight values above and below the midpoint. This ensures that the visualisation communicates the data clearly and accurately.
3. Prioritise Accessibility
Effective Power BI colour selection means ensuring your visualisations are accessible to everyone, including those with colour blindness. Roughly 8% of men and 0.5% of women are colour blind, with red-green colour blindness being the most common. To accommodate these users, choose colourblind-friendly palettes and ensure high contrast between text and background colours. This not only makes your visualisations more inclusive but also improves the overall readability of your report. Tools like Colour Brewer can help you select palettes that are accessible and effective.
4. Maintain Consistency Across Reports
Consistency is key in effective Power BI colour selection. If a category is represented by a specific colour in one chart, use the same colour for that category across all charts in the report. This helps users quickly interpret data without confusion and ensures a cohesive look and feel throughout your reports. Consistency is particularly important if your reports will be viewed by the same audience over time, as it helps them build familiarity with your data representations. Additionally, aligning your colours with your organisation’s branding guidelines can reinforce brand recognition and professionalism.
5. Avoid Overusing Bright or Saturated Colours
While bright and saturated colours can be attention-grabbing, they should be used sparingly in effective Power BI colour selection. Overusing these colours can be overwhelming and detract from your data’s message. Instead, reserve bright colours for highlighting key data points or alerting users to critical information. For general data visualisation, use more muted tones that are easy on the eyes. This approach ensures that your visualisations are both effective and aesthetically pleasing, making it easier for users to engage with the data.
6. Implement Gradients Carefully
Gradients are a powerful tool in effective Power BI colour selection, but they should be used carefully. Gradients work well for showing progression or ranges within your data, but it’s crucial that the differences in hue or brightness are perceptible. If the gradient is too subtle, it may be difficult for users to distinguish between different data points. Conversely, if the gradient is too extreme, it could mislead users into seeing patterns or trends that aren’t actually present. Ensure that your gradients accurately reflect data magnitude without misleading interpretations, and test your visualisations to make sure they communicate your data effectively.
7. Limit the Number of Colours in a Report
One of the most important aspects of effective Power BI colour selection is restraint. Using too many colours in a report can lead to visual clutter and make it difficult for users to focus on the most important data points. Ideally, limit your colour palette to no more than two primary colours and a maximum of three. Additional data points or categories can be represented using shades of grey, which helps keep the focus on the most critical areas of the report. This strategy not only simplifies the visualisation but also enhances the clarity and effectiveness of the data presentation.
8. Test and Iterate
An essential step in effective Power BI colour selection is testing your palette in different contexts. Once you’ve chosen your colours, test how they appear on different devices, in various lighting conditions, and from a distance. Gather feedback from end-users to understand how they perceive the colours and whether the data is clear and easy to interpret. Be ready to iterate and adjust your colour scheme based on this feedback to ensure maximum clarity and impact. Remember, the goal is to communicate data effectively, and sometimes that requires tweaking your design based on real-world usage.
Conclusion
Effective Power BI colour selection is not just about aesthetics—it’s about making sure your data is communicated clearly and accurately. By following these seven tips, you can create visualisations that are visually appealing, easy to interpret, and accessible to all users.
Whether you’re building a simple chart or a complex dashboard, effective Power BI colour selection enhances the visual appeal of your reports and improves the user experience, making your data more engaging and easier to understand. By limiting the number of colours, prioritising accessibility, and maintaining consistency, your Power BI reports will not only look professional but will also provide clear insights that drive better decision-making.
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Links to Sites for Colour Palettes and Colour Wheel Sites.
Here are some links to Colour Pallette Sites and sites that have colour wheels to allow you to choose suitable colours.
Coolors – The super fast color palettes generator! This site has a lot of palettes to choose from. I use this site frequently to get ideas for colours.
Color palettes – color schemes to inspire | Canva Colors – Canva has a lot of useful tools. This colour palette page is useful.
Color palette, the color scheme for artists | Adobe Color – Adobe has this tool for colour palettes. You can search for colours using keywords or colour names.
ColorKit – Color Palettes, Gradients, Inspiration, and Color Tools – Another useful site for exploring different palettes.
Color wheel – color theory and calculator | Canva Colors – This colour wheel allows you to choose colours and also shows colour combinations based on your selection you can choose from complementary colours, monochromatic colours, analogous colours, triadic colours, tetradic colours. you can export the palette you created
Color wheel, a color palette generator | Adobe Color – Another part of the Adobe colour tool. You can choose from different colour combinations you can even change the colour mode from RGB to other colour modes such as HSB. Although typically we are using monitors for displaying our visuals so RGB is the normal colour mode.
Color Wheel – Color Theory & Calculator – ColorKit – ColorKit has this colour wheel available for creating a palette.
Please let me know if you come across other useful colour palette or colour wheel sites. I’m always interested in these tools as colour is an important part of creating a good looking report.