Conditional formatting

Native configuration

Background colour, font colour, data bars, icons and colour scales driven by rules or measures.

Working example

Cell elements

Employee	Department	Target	Actual	Performance
Anna Meijer	IT	122	113	96%
Gijs Peters	Operations	167	173	96%
Ruben Smit	Finance	147	139	95%
Mees Visser	Retail	144	132	95%
Lotte Hendriks	Retail	155	154	95%
Anna Visser	Operations	173	167	95%
Femke Smit	Operations	155	154	94%
Daan Mulder	Operations	139	137	93%
Vera de Vries	IT	157	130	89%
Bram Hendriks	IT	177	156	85%

Rules: ≥ 90% on target · 75–89% watch · < 75% below expectation.

UX recommendation

Do not colour every cell without a clear analytical purpose. Format the exception, keep the rest neutral, and never signal status by colour alone — the icon and the value carry it too.

What it is

Rule-based or gradient formatting applied to a column, optionally driven by a separate measure.

When to use it

To make exceptions visible — thresholds, breaches, out-of-range values.

Native Power BI capability

Yes — Cell elements: Background colour, Font colour, Data bars, Icons, Web URL.

UX considerations

Format exceptions, not every cell. Colour on everything communicates nothing.
Never rely on colour alone; pair with an icon or a text status.
Document the thresholds (≥ 90%, 75–89%, < 75%) as part of the specification.

BI developer considerations

Prefer 'Format by: Rules' with explicit boundaries over gradients for thresholds.
Use 'Format by: Field value' when the business logic lives in a DAX measure.
Check contrast of the chosen background/text combinations.

QA considerations

Boundary values (exactly 75, exactly 90) land in the intended band.
Formatting holds after sorting and filtering.

Limitations

Data bars are not available on every column type.
Icon sets are limited to the built-in library unless a measure supplies unicode characters.

HTML prototype note

This interactive HTML example simulates the native Power BI behaviour. It is not Power BI itself and should not be interpreted as an implementation of the Power BI rendering engine.

Designer ↔ BI developer handoff

UX designer defines

Information hierarchy and column order
Required fields and measures
Default state (sort, filters, selection)
Interaction intent and what it should affect
Responsive priority and what may be dropped
Accessibility expectations and focus order
Empty, loading and error states

BI developer implements

Dataset fields, measures and relationships
Visual configuration in the format pane
Filters, sort order and interaction wiring
Drill-through / drill-down configuration
Conditional formatting rules
Row-level security and permissions
Query performance optimisation

QA validates

Data correctness against the source
Correct default state on first load
Sorting and filtering behaviour
Drill and selection behaviour
Permissions and row-level security
Empty states and responsive layout
Performance and export behaviour