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Guide section 44 of 55

Design-system thinking changes shape

A web design system commonly runs tokens → components → patterns → templates → application. For Power BI a useful structure is:

Company Design System
        ↓
Design Tokens
        ↓
Power BI Theme
        ↓
Native component configurations
        ↓
Section patterns
        ↓
Page patterns
        ↓
Report templates

Report themes can centrally configure supported color, structural, text and visual-style properties through JSON, although individual visual formatting can still override those defaults.

Do not create another design system just because the runtime is Power BI. Reuse the existing foundations and add a Power BI layer describing token mappings, component configurations, limitations, page patterns, visualization rules, interactions and implementation guidance.