A computer-implemented design tool for the navigation and visualization of data in at least one relational and/or multidimensional database. The design tool allows a user to partition a display screen into a plurality of frames, to insert and configure controls within each frame to form a dashboard, the controls defining queries to the database(s) and any rules associated with those queries, and to create the dashboards in multiple levels for each of the frames. Configuring the controls permits a user to define drill actions for the controls within each dashboard to target dashboards in any of the multiple levels, both within the same frame as the starting dashboard, as well as in any or all of the other frames. The user-defined drill actions provide for powerful and highly flexible multi-path and multi-level navigation to achieve visualization of data in the database(s), by displaying on the display screen a respective target dashboard of any one of the multiple levels in each frame according to the controls selected by the user.