Tips for Making the Most of Tableau

Our second objective is to revisit the best practices we have already seen in other chapters and learn how to implement these best practices in Tableau.

Revisiting Best Practices

In Data Visualization with Python , we introduced some best practices for building effective visualizations and tips for choosing a chart style.

To start with creating an effective visualization, we need to follow three rules:

1. Make sure that we have textual context
2. Use a color palette that helps us stand out
3. Keep it simple

Let’s see how we can ensure that we follow these three rules with Tableau.

Adding Textual Context

We cannot guarantee that we will get the opportunity to walk every user through our visualizations. So, we need to add guiding text such as labels, titles, and captions.

Tableau names the axes of a visualization after the fields that the visualization uses, so you may not have the label you really want.

To change it, right-click on the axis and select Edit Axis. In the resulting menu, you can change a number of characteristics of the axis such as the range, including the actual label text. Remember to add the dimensions of your axis in parentheses after the label text to make sure that the dimensions are clear to your users.

Tableau defaults field labels to be a very dark gray which may not work with the colors chosen for your visualization or be easily readable by members of your team. If you right-click on the field label, you can click Format Field and change the font, font size, and color to better fit your visualization needs.

To edit the title, right-click on the title and select Edit. The resulting dialog box will also have lots of options for re-formatting the title if you are already satisfied with the text.

To edit a caption, you can find the Edit Caption option under the context menu that appears when you select the arrow on the right-hand side of the title.

Picking the Right Color Palette

Oftentimes your company will dictate the color palette for you, but you can follow a few simple rules to get the right color palette down pat.

Picking complementary colors with a color wheel can be a good place to start.

Checking color contrast can also help make sure that your vizzes shine. Accessibility is vital to ensuring that your audience understands your visualizations.

You can edit your color palette for the marks of your visualization by right-clicking on the legend and selecting Edit Colors. If just one item is out of sync with the rest of the color palette, then you can click Select Data Item and change it. If the whole color palette needs to be changed, then you select a new color palette in the Select Color Palette dropdown menu.

Keep It Simple

The principle of keeping it simple means making sure that all the data on the viz is relevant and that we aren’t including too much. The more data we have on one viz, the harder it becomes for the reader to comprehend the visual without you there to explain it.

This isn’t to say that including multiple lines on a line chart is a bad idea. You can use filters on your Tableau vizzes to help clarify what exactly you need and help users select specific groups.

Selecting Chart Styles in Tableau

Finally, we want to think about what we are displaying before selecting a chart style. Here is a refresher on the four chart styles we introduced in Data Visualization in Python :

1. Comparison
2. Relationship
3. Distribution
4. Composition

Tableau has many chart styles that fit each of these categories beyond the initial ones introduced to you earlier.

When you are changing the chart style in the upper-right hand corner of Tableau, you may notice some chart styles will be unavailable. Tableau analyzes the selected rows and columns in your viz and marks certain charts as unavailable if they don’t fit your dataset.

Show Me in Tableau is a powerful feature which helps you quickly discover the best visualizations for your data. It automatically suggests a variety of charts and graphs based on your data structure — meaning, the dimension(s) and measure(s) in your visualization and how many of each are selected — and the relationships between your fields.

Here is how Show Me works:

• Select Fields: Choose the fields you want to visualize.
• Show Me Suggestions: Tableau will present a list of potential visualizations that might be suitable for your data. These suggestions are based on factors like data types, relationships between fields, and common visualization patterns.
• Choose a Visualization: Click on the visualization you like to see the results.

Key benefits of Show Me:

• Time-saving: Quickly explore different visualization options without manually creating each chart.
• Data-driven Suggestions: Show Me provides recommendations based on the characteristics of your data.
• Discover New Insights: You might find visualizations you hadn’t considered before that reveal interesting trends or patterns.
• Easy to Use: The interface is simple and intuitive, making it accessible to users of all levels.

Show Me is also a time-efficient way of learning how to create a visualization you may not yet be familar with how to build, as once the visual is selected within Show Me, it will automatically move the dimension and measure pills to the appropriate row, columns, and / or marks card to display the visualization.

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