Communicating Data with Tableau: Designing, Developing, and Delivering Data Visualizations

334 Pages·2014·43.679 MB·English

by  Ben Jones

www.it-ebooks.info
www.it-ebooks.info
Communicating Data
with Tableau
Ben Jones
www.it-ebooks.info
Communicating Data with Tableau
by Ben Jones
Copyright © 2014 Ben Jones. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
Published by O’Reilly Media, Inc., 1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol, CA
95472.
O’Reilly books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use.
Online editions are also available for most titles (http://my.safaribooksonline.com). For
more information, contact our corporate/institutional sales department: 800-998-9938
or [email protected].
Editor: Julie Steele Indexer: Lucie Haskins
Production Editor: Kristen Brown Cover Designer: Karen Montgomery
Copyeditor: Jasmine Kwityn Interior Designer: David Futato
Proofreader: Eliahu Sussman Illustrator: Rebecca Demarest
June 2014: First Edition
Revision History for the First Edition:
2014-06-12: First release
See http://oreilly.com/catalog/errata.csp?isbn=9781449372026 for release details.
Nutshell Handbook, the Nutshell Handbook logo, and the O’Reilly logo are registered
trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc. Communicating Data with Tableau, the image of a
turquoise parrot, and related trade dress are trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc.
Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their prod‐
ucts are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and
O’Reilly Media, Inc. was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed
in caps or initial caps.
While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher
and author assume no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting
from the use of the information contained herein.
ISBN: 978-1-449-37202-6
[LSI]
www.it-ebooks.info
Table of Contents
Preface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
1. Communicating Data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
A Step in the Process 2
A Model of Communication 3
Three Types of Communication Problems 4
Six Principles of Communicating Data 5
Principle #1: Know Your Goal 6
Principle #2: Use the Right Data 7
Principle #3: Select Suitable Visualizations 8
Principle #4: Design for Aesthetics 9
Principle #5: Choose an Effective Medium and Channel 11
Principle #6: Check the Results 13
Summary 13
2. Introduction to Tableau. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Using Tableau 15
My Tableau Story 16
Tableau Products 16
Connecting to Data 18
The Tableau User Interface 18
Summary 29
3. How Much and How Many. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Communicating “How Much” 32
An Example of How Much 33
Comparing Comparisons 35
iii
www.it-ebooks.info
Fine-Tuning the Default 36
Sorting 37
The Dot Chart 39
Communicating “How Many” 42
A Tale of Two Formats 43
Counting Dimensions 43
Histograms: How Many of How Much? 46
Summary 50
4. Ratios and Rates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Ratios 52
Two Ways of Adding Rank 60
Rates 63
Blending Data Sources 64
Visualizing Rates 65
Summary 67
5. Proportions and Percentages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Part-to-Whole 69
Introducing Filters and Quick Filters 71
Introducing Table Calculations 74
Proportions as Waterfall Charts Using Gantt 79
Current-to-Historical 82
The Bullet Graph 82
Reference Lines 84
Actual-to-Target 85
Summary 86
6. Mean and Median. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
The Normal Distribution 88
An Example of “Normal” Data 89
Box Plots 90
An Example of “Non-Normal” Data 96
Sensitivity to Outliers 97
Visualizing Typical Values of Non-Normal Distributions 98
Summary 99
7. Variation and Uncertainty. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Respecting Variation 101
Visualizing Variation 104
iv | Table of Contents
www.it-ebooks.info
Variation Over Time: Control Charts 106
Anatomy of a Control Chart 107
How to Create a Control Chart in Tableau 107
Understanding Uncertainty 115
Summary 123
8. Multiple Quantities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Scatterplots 126
Who Is Who? 130
Making it Exploratory 134
Adding Background Images 136
Stacked Bars 137
Regression and Trend Lines 141
The Quadrant Chart 146
Summary 148
9. Changes Over Time. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
The Origin of Time Charts 150
The Line Chart 151
The Dual-Axis Line Chart 154
The Connected Scatterplot 158
The Date Field Type and Seasonality 162
The Timeline 166
The Slopegraph 171
Step 1: Get the Data 171
Step 2: Connect Tableau 172
Step 3: Create a Parameter and Matching Calculated Field 172
Step 4: Create the Basic Slopegraph 174
Step 5: Add Line Coloring and Thickness 175
Step 6: Design the Dashboard 178
Summary 179
10. Maps and Location. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
One Special Map 182
Circle Maps 183
Adding a Second Encoding 185
When Marks Multiply 186
Filled Maps 190
Dual-Encoded Maps 196
A Dual-Axis Map 197
Table of Contents | v
www.it-ebooks.info
A Dual-Encoded Circle Map 199
Summary 201
11. Advanced Maps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
Maps with Shapes 204
Maps Showing Paths 211
Plotting Map Shapes Using Axes 216
Summary 223
12. The Joy of Dashboards. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
Dashboards in Tableau 226
A Word of Caution 228
“Begin with the End in Mind” 229
Types of Dashboards 230
Context Is King 235
Summary 238
13. Building Dashboards. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
Building an Exploratory Dashboard 243
Step 1: Design 243
Step 2: Sheets 243
Moving Things Around 248
Step 3: Annotations 250
Step 4: Objects 253
Step 5: Actions 258
Step 6: Formatting 270
Steps 7 and 8: Delivery and Results 271
Building an Explanatory Dashboard 272
A Key Point to Explain: Nordic Countries in the Lead 272
Another Key Point to Explain: The Emergence of China 274
Summary 275
14. Advanced Dashboard Features. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
Animating Dashboards 278
Showing Multiple Tabs 282
Adding Navigation with Filters 285
Adding Custom Header Images 290
Adding Google Maps to Dashboards 292
Create the URLs 294
vi | Table of Contents
www.it-ebooks.info
Adding Dynamic Google Maps Satellite Images to Our
Dashboard 295
Adding YouTube Videos to Dashboards 297
Summary 302
A. Resources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305
Table of Contents | vii
www.it-ebooks.info
www.it-ebooks.info