How to Create Reports and Visualizations That Inspire Action

As many analysts, controllers, and report developers as there are, that’s how many different dashboards, tables, and visualizations get created. Everyone has their own habits and preferences, much like a painter interpreting data visually. But often, these reports are confusing for the end user, who receives dashboards from different sources and in various formats. If reading a report often feels like interpreting modern art, this article is for you. There are principles and patterns that help make data reports more intuitive, insightful, and actionable.

Best Practices for Data Visualization in Reports

Whether you’re looking at a report for the first time or you’re already familiar with its structure, one thing is key: the information you need should be easy to find and interpret. After all, you rely on it to make important business decisions.

It’s worth noting that the way information is presented—whether in Excel, Power BI, or other platforms—should clarify and accelerate understanding of your organization’s operational, financial, or strategic situation. Decision-makers shouldn’t waste time searching for relevant data—it should be presented clearly and accessibly. Reports can answer questions like:

• What are the company’s results across business units?
• Are we meeting the budget? If not, which areas are underperforming?
• How are sales, margins, KPIs trending over time?
• What is our sales performance across different segments or dimensions?
• Are our debt collection efforts producing results?
• Are budget owners meeting their targets?
• How do our KPIs compare to competitors? (Benchmarking)

So how can you make life easier for report users?

Minimize Text

One of the most valuable practices is keeping text to an absolute minimum. Text alone can’t convey relationships, trends, or deviations clearly. Whenever possible, replace it with charts, tables, or other visuals. But visual clutter is also a risk—unoptimized visuals can be just as confusing as overly text-heavy reports.

Use annotations to provide context when needed. These can highlight key insights like the cause of a deviation, a one-time cost, or a shift in margin—without overwhelming the viewer.

Limit Color Use and Ensure Consistency

Color in data visualization is a tricky topic. Using too many colors distracts users and makes it harder to focus on the actual message. Instead of helping, it adds confusion as users try to decipher color meaning.

Avoid overuse of decorative or bright colors—in both chart backgrounds and data points. Stick with a focused, consistent palette.

A great reference is the IBCS® (International Business Communication Standards), which promotes minimal color use—mostly grayscale—reserving red and green for deviations and dynamics.

(Example of a cluttered, unreadable report with unclear insights)

Even without adopting full IBCS® standards, consistency in color use is essential. For instance, always use the same color for a product category or margin type—your users will thank you for the clarity.

(Power BI report with optimized color scheme for clarity and meaning)

Avoid “Traffic Light” Indicators

The red-yellow-green “traffic light” visualization is common but problematic. It may seem helpful at first, but it quickly becomes unclear. Both IBCS® and our experience recommend using just two colors—green and red—to show performance versus plan, and ideally visualizing the scale of deviation as well.

(Left: traffic light indicators. Right: Zebra BI-enhanced table for clearer insights)

Less Is More

Over-design is a common pitfall. 3D effects, shadows, background images, oversized titles—all these distract from your message. This kind of visual noise is often called “chartjunk.”

There’s even a metric for this: the data-ink ratio—the proportion of “ink” used to show data versus the total “ink” used to draw the chart. Higher is better.

Consider what you can remove: gridlines, borders, 3D effects, loud fonts. These add noise. Here’s a comparison:

(Left: cluttered visualization with low data-ink ratio. Right: streamlined chart with clearer insights)

Which chart makes it easier to find sales from Car 5? Likely the second one. Labels directly on bars are also IBCS® best practices.

Charts Inside Tables

Tables or charts? Why not both? Combining them can unlock new clarity.

(Left: standard deviation table. Right: optimized Power BI table using Zebra BI visuals)

Chart-in-table is powerful for variance analysis. Once you get used to it, you won’t go back. Each row becomes instantly insightful. Use bars for numeric values, lollipop charts for percentages, and red/green coloring to flag negatives/positives.

This makes deviation analysis fast and accurate, helping you zoom into the details and act faster.

Avoid Information Overload

Too much data kills clarity. Dashboards should be intuitive, useful, and not overwhelming. Avoid overloading a single page with too many charts, slicers, or tooltips.

Design with the principle of overview first, details on demand. The most important KPIs should be immediately visible—no excessive scrolling or clicks required.

(Left: information overload. Right: optimized Power BI dashboard)

Provide Reference Points

Almost all reporting is about measuring performance. Whenever possible, include comparisons—against budget, plan, previous periods, or benchmarks. A trendline alone is meaningless if users don’t know whether the goal was met.

(Power BI visualization showing monthly revenue versus plan, by quarter and full year)

Conclusion

Clarity is king in reporting. It’s not hard to achieve—if you have the right tools, mindset, and consistency. Using standards like IBCS® helps you bring order to the chaos of information.

They’re not mandatory, but they are tried-and-tested by experts. And following them saves time, reduces friction, and improves decision-making.

At Enterium, we help organizations streamline their controlling and reporting processes—especially through visual storytelling and managerial dashboards. We’re a Microsoft Power BI partner and proud Zebra BI partner, giving our clients access to world-class, IBCS®-aligned reporting solutions. These tools bring reporting into a new dimension—cloud-based, interactive, and business-ready.

Get in touch with us