“Can you build us a management dashboard?”

Most Power BI projects start exactly like this, with a vague request and the expectation that the developer will somehow turn it into something insightful, beautiful, and easy to use.

Too often we jump straight into Power BI and start dragging visuals onto a canvas. The result is dashboards that look cluttered, inconsistent, and difficult to scale.

This session takes a different approach: design first, build later.

Starting with a typical stakeholder request, we will walk through the process of designing a Power BI dashboard from scratch using wireframes. Together we’ll decide what belongs on the page, how information should be prioritised, and how layout, colour, and typography influence the way users read data.

Along the way we’ll explore questions that good report designers ask before opening Power BI:

Why are we using these colours?

Is the design accessible and readable for all users?

How will this layout scale when more pages or reports are added?

How do we turn stakeholder requests into a structured visual plan?

By the end of the session we will have produced a complete dashboard wireframe and a repeatable design approach that can be applied to any Power BI reporting project.

What You’ll Learn

How to translate stakeholder requests into structured dashboard wireframes

How to design layouts that prioritise clarity and usability

How colour, typography, and spacing affect data interpretation

How to design reports that scale across multiple dashboards and teams

Key Takeaways

A repeatable wireframing process for Power BI report design

Practical design principles you can apply before opening Power BI

Techniques for creating dashboards that are clearer, more accessible, and easier to scale