Fabricland Destiny Navigator was created with the goal of transforming an educational dataset into an interactive, accessible, and engaging experience.
I graduated this past September and have been working for about a year as a data assistant, dealing daily with modeling, DAX, visualizations, and analytical experiences. This challenge was a great opportunity to combine what I study, practice, and truly enjoy building: solutions that help people make better, data-driven decisions.
My focus in this project was to design a report that acts as an academic guidance assistant for the students of Fabricland. Instead of merely listing numbers, I envisioned a journey: the user selects their magical path, mastery level, and specialty. The report returns the colleges most aligned with those choices.
The report allows students to:
Explore colleges that match their interests
Compare career paths and mastery levels
View details such as tuition, student happiness, and magical performance
Evaluate programs by difficulty, duration, and expected salary outcomes
My goal was to turn data into a simple, fun, and meaningful experience, something I would personally want to use if I were choosing my own destiny in Fabricland 🙂
Tools and Approach
I built the entire solution in Power BI Desktop, from data preparation to the final interactive experience. The model combines college profiles and program details, allowing students to move naturally from “What do I want to study?” to “Which colleges and programs best fit my choices?”.
I relied heavily on DAX to create calculated measures and HTML-based visuals, especially for the college cards and program list. These custom cards were designed to feel more like an app experience than a traditional dashboard table, while still being fully driven by the underlying data. I also used slicers, buttons, and layout decisions to guide the user step by step.
Report Walkthrough
The report is structured as a guided journey. At the top, the user chooses their magical path and mastery level, which immediately narrows down the universe of relevant options. Then, a set of class specialties lets them refine their preferences even further.
Once a combination is selected, the right-hand side of the report displays college recommendation cards. Each card summarizes the most important signals for decision-making: magical focus area, kingdom, tuition fee, happiness and satisfaction metrics, plus a list of programs with duration, difficulty, and starting salary. The design aims to answer the key questions directly in-context: Which colleges are more affordable? Which seem to offer a better student experience? What kind of programs and outcomes can I expect there?
Challenges and Lessons Learned
One of the main challenges was balancing creativity with clarity. It was tempting to keep adding more visuals and interactions, but I had to constantly step back and ask, “Does this make the student’s decision easier, or just more complicated?”.
Working with HTML inside DAX to build the college and program cards also required careful attention to detail. Small mistakes in the logic or filtering could break the layout or show the wrong combinations of programs and colleges. I also spent time adjusting accessibility aspects such as tab order and alt text, which reminded me that a good report is not only visually beautiful, but also usable for different types of users.
If I had more time, I would explore adding a dedicated “insights” page with trend charts. Even without that, this challenge reinforced how powerful it can be to design BI experiences that feel more like tools and less like static reports.
Connect
If you’d like to follow my work, exchange ideas, or connect around data visualization and Power BI, you can find me on LinkedIn: Juliana Fortunato | LinkedIn
eyJrIjoiNTE1NDI4N2YtZWIxZS00NmEwLWE1MTUtZGMyOGUxNmNmMThmIiwidCI6IjhlZWNhNDA0LWE0N2QtNDU1NS1hMmQ0LTBmMzYxOTA0MWM5YyJ9
