Level 1 · Choose the visual from the question

Every visual answers one kind of question. Choose the question first, and the gallery of visuals in Power BI shrinks to one or two candidates.

What you are working in

This level is a quiz. The two charts are drawn from the store’s real 2025 data on this site, not in Power BI, which runs only on Windows. In Power BI Desktop you’d build them from the Visualizations pane on the Report view: click a visual’s icon to add an empty one, then drag fields into its wells (X-axis, Y-axis, Values).

Five questions, five visuals

The question	The visual	What carries the answer
What is the number?	Card	one big value, with its label
How did it change over time?	Line chart	the slope and shape of the line
Which group is bigger?	Bar or column chart	bar lengths from a common zero
What are the exact values?	Table (or matrix)	rows of precise numbers
Are we on target?	KPI visual	value against a target, with a trend

Bar or column? Both compare categories. Horizontal bars suit many categories or long names, because the labels stay readable. Vertical columns suit a few categories, or discrete periods like quarters, where left-to-right reads as time.

Line charts need an ordered axis: dates, months, weeks. Connecting categories with a line suggests that something flows from Furniture to Lighting, which nothing does.

Reading the two charts

Chart A shows 2025 month by month. You see the shape: a dip in February, a slow climb to June, and a big jump in November and December. A table of the same twelve numbers holds the same facts, but the reader has to build the shape in their head.

Chart B sorts six categories by sales. The ranking is the order of the bars: Furniture first, then Outdoor and Lighting. The bars start at zero, so a bar twice as long means twice the sales.

Cards and tables at the edges of the page

A card is the right answer when the question is a single number: “total 2025 sales”. It reads in one glance and sits well at the top of a page. A table is the right answer when someone needs to look up or check exact rows, like finance reconciling orders. It is the worst choice for spotting a pattern, and the best for an audit.

Common mistakes

• A KPI visual without a target. Its whole point is the comparison; with no target, use a card.
• Pies for ranking. Six similar slices are hard to order; sorted bars are not.
• Lines across categories. Use lines only when the x axis has an order.
• A chart of every row. Thousands of bars or points answer nothing; aggregate, or use a table.