Antichaos

Tableau, Data Analyse & Visualisatie

Calculations

Responsive Labels – Smarter, Cleaner Dashboards

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Data Visualization is about visualizing data the right way.

Interactive business dashboards tend to have a special challenge: the must display data with accurate labels, regardless of how the data changes from day to day. Many infographics visualizations are using static data – and therefor the labels can be put on the most convenient location. But what happens when the data changes – either due to new data, or filtering? Labels will overlap, disappear, and/or get mixed up.

The funnel chart is one type of visualization that’s especially prone to this, even with just a few data marks. While working on one, I came up with a solution to keep all the labels nice and clear, no matter what the data throws at it. Bonus: it’s flexible enough for easy customization!

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Change marks on Hover

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Sometime you want to make a dramatic statement – and sometimes you just need a little nudge to help users understand a dashboard.

Tableau makes it really easy to create a minimalist dashboard – and tooltips are a great way to unlock the data behind a mark. Emphasizing the datapoint of the tooltip will make the visualization just a little better. And this is even more important on charts with multiple lines.

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Improve Titles on Small Multiples

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Small multiples charts (also known as trellis charts or panel charts) are a great way to visualize trends across different categories while maintaining consistency. They display multiple variations of the same chart, often sharing a common axis, which allows for easier comparison across groups.

While effective, these charts can suffer from poor readability if titles are not thoughtfully applied. Let’s look at some ways to enhance labels for better clarity and user experience.

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Drill Down in Tight Spaces

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A different way to make drill down possible/usable in a small sheet.

Sometimes you don’t have all the space to do what you want.

Or you are almost finished with a dashboard, and suddenly someone mentions: “Wouldn’t it be nice if we could drill down on this chart…” – but the sheet is just too small for another column. There are multiple ways so solve this issue – each with its own pros and cons. Viz-in tooltip (hard to read on larger drill-downs), hiding nearby sheets (tedious), enlarging the row-height (ugly when not drilled-down), misusing totals (even uglier), …

In this article I describe a different solution – which definitely has its disadvantages, but can be useful in certain situations where the drill down functionality is important.

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