Data Visualisation (BS664) — Portfolio: Tableau and Power BI Dashboard Development for Evidence-Based Decision-Making
This Level 7 portfolio accumulates work across a full semester of data visualisation study and is submitted as one continuous document combining reflective writing, tool evaluation and an applied dashboard project. The emphasis throughout falls on interpretative rigour — showing not just that a visualisation was built, but why each design decision serves the decision-maker who has to act on it. The first activity documents sustained critical participation across the module's weekly discussion topics. Five or more substantive responses are evidenced with dated screenshots, each paired with the corresponding workshop date, and each grounded in both academic literature and practitioner sources rather than opinion alone. Live URLs to the Power BI and Tableau dashboards built during the module are included, and the activity closes with a consolidated review of how understanding developed across the units. The second activity covers formal training completion in both platforms, with certificates and badges reproduced, and then turns to accessibility. It examines the visualisations produced during that training against accessibility principles — colour contrast and colour-blind safe palettes, text alternatives, chart type legibility, cognitive load — and argues why accessibility is not a compliance afterthought but a determinant of whether a dashboard actually informs decisions inside a global organisation with a diverse user base. The third activity is a structured comparison of Tableau and Power BI, conducted through the evaluative frameworks introduced in workshops rather than a feature checklist. Benefits and limitations are weighed across data connectivity, calculation capability, visual flexibility, licensing and cost, collaboration and governance, and organisational fit. The section ends with a reasoned recommendation of one platform for the applied work that follows, with the trade-offs of that choice acknowledged openly. The fourth and largest activity is the applied project. A dataset is selected from an approved open source and its provenance, quality and limitations discussed. The target business, its stakeholder groups and the varying analytical literacy of the intended audience are analysed, because these determine what the dashboard must show and how plainly. The report then walks through the full development sequence — data preparation and cleaning, chart selection and justification, layout and interactivity, iteration in response to identified weaknesses — with screenshots evidencing each stage. Findings are reported and translated into specific, evidence-based decisions the business could take on the strength of them. The submission follows the prescribed structure with title page, contents, introduction, business problem, main analysis, findings, Harvard reference list and appendices, presented as a single file.
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