Best of the Tableau Web: New variations for lines, slopes, and parameter actions

Welcome to the Best of the Tableau Web! To keep you going for another month, here are more tips, tricks, and inspiration.

Welcome to the Best of the Tableau Web! To keep you going for another month, here are more tips, tricks, and inspiration.

Iteration of ideas is crucial to any field, and visual analytics is another. One post I want to highlight this month is “Evolution and Variation with ‘line and slope’ charts in Tableau” by Dorian Banutoiu. It epitomizes everything I look for when reading our community content. First of all, Dorian is trying out new ideas, such as combining slopes and lines. Second, there is humility in the acceptance that no idea is perfect. Third, he shows his iterative process. And finally, there’s some excellent use of Tableau features at play in this post. His initial idea about combining slopes and lines seems to be an easy solution to show detail and summaries in one view. Innovative stuff, but not without issues. The post explains how he, and others, have thought through the issue, experimented with various iterations, and then used parameter actions to create an excellent new way of interacting with timelines. The end result is a smart visual technique, and a lesson to us all that to increase our skill, we need to bounce ideas around with others.

Another great post this month is Lorna Eden’s explanation of how to use Measure Names in parameter actions. The post describes a solution to the Live Workout Wednesday event at Tableau Conference Europe. First of all, the tip came from Workout Wednesday, a weekly challenge of brain teasers that is a great way to boost your Tableau technical skills. Second, it uses parameter actions to achieve slick interactive experiences. And finally, Lorna’s explanations are clear and easy to follow—providing a great example for Tableau users to learn parameter actions.

Thank you, everyone, for all your Tableau blogs: it’s always a pleasure to read them. I learn so much each month.