All Visualizations Stories

Filters are a powerful tool for the data explorer. With a filter, you can easily drill down, consider only the relevant subset, and easily answer even the most complex questions. And when you use custom shapes as filters, they become that much more approachable and user-friendly.

I was on a call with Zen Masters Steve Wexler, Jeff Shaffer, and Robert Rouse. We were talking about formatting labels, and Robert was saying, “Well, of course, you can just drag the labels around.” “Wait. What?” I said.

Is there a single “best” way to visualize data in a particular scenario and for a particular audience, or are there multiple “good enough” ways? This is going to sound strange, but I think both are right.

We here at Tableau are very proud of how easy it is to see and understand data with Tableau. Once you get started, it’s intuitive to dive deeper by adding more and more fields, formulae, and calculations to a simple visualization—until it becomes slower and slower to render. In a world where two-second response times can lose an audience, performance is crucial. Here are some tips on making your dashboards more performant.

Tableau is a playground for creativity. When a bit of knowledge meets imagination, a Tableau Jedi is born. Understanding a couple of key facts about Level of Detail Expressions can save you hours of trying to guess Google search terms for answers to tough questions.

Blank stares, then...huh? That's what I get when I say "visual analysis." People tend to think I'm talking about making a chart. I am, but more than that, I'm talking about exploring data visually with Tableau.

We’ve sure been having a geeky month here at Tableau. It all started when we built a Web Data Connector (WDC) to the Star Wars API. Then, we watched as you, our downright-stellar community, put our data to work. (We couldn’t resist that pun.) The Star Wars data fever didn’t end there, though. In the nearly two weeks since Episode VII’s release, dozens of visualizations have popped up all over the web. Here are some of our favorites.

So you have your focus and your orientation. Now it’s time to design your mobile dashboard. Keep your dashboard design simple and targeted. Follow these tips to design a new dashboard or transform an existing dashboard for the small screen.

Just because you have geographical data, it doesn't mean you should make a map. Just because you have a date, it doesn't mean a trend line is the best thing. And just because you want to see the relationship of a part to a whole, it doesn't mean you should use a pie chart.

Now that you’ve picked the metrics to include in your mobile dashboard, it’s time to decide whether to go vertical or horizontal. It’s important to make this decision before you start building your dashboard or transforming an existing one. Why? The answer is simple: screen size. Because the phone screen is very small, the orientation you choose will impact many steps, from your analysis to the layout of your views. Below are some tips to get you started.

Last week, we released a web data connector (WDC) to the Star Wars API. Judging from your Twitter conversations, we can tell there’s a lot of Star Wars excitement in the Tableau community! Today, we’d like to congratulate the fans (ourselves included) for enduring the long wait for Episode VII. We’re excited to share ten awesome visualizations about Star Wars, including many that you created with the WDC in just the past week.

With mobile devices now ubiquitous, more and more companies are looking to leverage the power of mobile analytics. Whether you’re at an offsite meeting, on a plane, or even in your pajamas at home, being just a few taps and swipes away from your data has tremendous value. But due to their small screen size and touch interface, phones pose a unique challenge as an analytics distribution platform. That’s why it’s critical to pinpoint your analytical focus when designing your smartphone dashboard. You’ll want to include only the metrics that truly matter to your audience.