Sparklines - Easier Than I Thought

I recently had to look at a lot of data categories as their values moved through time. I wanted to embed these graphs in a Word document to succinctly and effectively provide visual context to my discussion points. I originally thought I would use one graph with multiple color-encoded lines but realized that it would not be very effective in my document. There were too many lines overlapping each other and you couldn't really discern what was happening for each category.

I remembered what Edward Tufte and Stephen Few recommend - sparklines - and used Tableau to create them quickly and easily.

Life Expectancy in OECD Countries

The Junk Charts blog had a posting about web publishing that included a comment by reader 'DavidS'. He suggested using quartiles in a chart about life expectancy in OECD countries. Since the data was easy to download, I explored his suggestion in Tableau. Although the original chart is a good summary of the upward trend of life expectancy, David is correct that a more statistical view showing outliers demonstrates that the variance has increased even though the range has reduced.

Can You Improve this Graph?

One of the blogs I read regularly is Flowing Data, which discusses effective visualization techniques for making sense of data.  A recurring topic is a challenge to the readers: can you improve this graph? 

EagerEyes Blog Lists Top 10 Information Visualization Influences on Tableau’s Jock Mackinlay

I love it when people much more knowledgeable than I give me inside views into what shaped them. It’s fascinating to see what influenced them as they developed into the industry experts we know. EagerEyes.org, a terrific blog with lots of resources on information visualization, recently asked Tableau’s own Dr. Jock Mackinlay to name his top 10 influences.

Visual Analysis of the Zeroth Kind: Geoffrey Taylor and The Bomb

"What do you do?" It's a question you probably get all the time, like I do. Being a QA engineer at Tableau, my usual quick answer is that "I test data visualization software." Simple enough, right?

Well, I've found that different people hear different things out of a statement like that. For some, visualizing data is the last step -- a way of constructing charts of information for documentation or presentation. But for others, visualizing data is the first step -- a way to understand data before analyzing it in detail.

Learning by Example - Real Data Visualizations with Real Data Now Available

If you're like most people, one way you like to learn new stuff is by example. So recently several people at Tableau Software put together over 40 different examples of data visualizations based on many different types of data. Each is accompanied by a Tableau packaged workbook which contains additional visualizations and the data behind them. Everything is available as free downloads.

Inside Healthcare Computing Reports Major Hospital Saved $20 Million with Tableau Software

We love it when we learn about customers not only creating insightful and beautiful visualizations but also (and more importantly) creating real value for their organizations. As a recent article in Inside Healthcare Computing reported, a major hospital in Ohio "avoids $20 Million in denials in one year using IT-recommended $1,800 software package". That $1,800 package was Tableau Desktop. How did they do it? Our client told it best. We've also got a case study.

Searching for the Holy Grail of Analysis

Jock Mackinlay and Chris Stolte recently posted a Tableau Letter I could have used when my primary job was conducting data analysis or managing other analysts. Their Letter "There Is No Single View" suggests that searching for the one perfect view may be a noble cause but the effort is typically futile. Rather than focusing on a single perfect view, people are better served focusing on the process of analysis, which explores a wide range of views to answer questions or present findings.

Building Cycle Charts to Look at Trend Data

The January 2008 newsletter from Perceptual Edge is an excellent description of Cycle Plots by Naomi B Robbins Ph.D, which are a less known way to look at trend data. On her website, you can find a link that describes how you can create these views in Excel and provided the input data. I think it is great when people give you access to the data that is shown in examples. I used the same data to build a cycle chart in Tableau in a couple of minutes.

Three of History's Best Charts Ever According to The Economist

Check out the December 22nd 2007-January 4th 2008 issue of The Economist. You probably remember it from the newsstands: it's got Mao in a Santa's hat. It's also got a great article "Worth a thousand words" about what they call "the best charts ever" - and guess what? They are all from the 19th century!