Overview One of the new features in Tableau 8.1 that Tableau Software is trumpeting quite a bit is one-click Box and Whisker Plot generation. While I appreciate the new functionality, this chart type doesn’t “sing” to me the as much as jittering does. Indeed, this “jittering” capability was the BIG discovery for me in 2013. [...]
If I see a visualization that is poorly designed or worse, misleading, I'm going to say something about it. I hope you will do the same. In March of 2013 Stephen Few published a scathing review of Tableau 8. Few's thesis was that Tableau had caved to marketing pressure and its new product would encourage users to [...]
In this installment we’ll look at Utah State University’s publication of student engagement results. Utah State is one of many collegiate institutions that have participated in NSSE’s national survey of student engagement (see http://nsse.iub.edu/ and http://nsse.iub.edu/html/about.cfm). Special thanks to Allan Walker for making the underlying data available to me. Note: I've published four sets of [...]
My problem with most infographics is that they sacrifice accuracy and clarity for whimsy and cuteness. While I understand the desire to "draw the reader" in, I believe it's critical that the information and the story not be misleading. So, imagine my delight when I thought I had found an infographic that was spot-on accurate and fun and engaging. [...]
I spend half my time as a musician and the other half as a data visualization "scientist". I love both professions but one downside shared by both professions is that I cannot listen to music nor glance at a chart without trying to figure out what is going on inside the music and inside the [...]
We begin a new feature this month where I look at some recently-published data visualizations and offer suggestions on how they can be improved. I'll start with the MASIE Center's Mobile Pulse Survey results. For those of you that don't know, The MASIE Center is a Saratoga Springs, NY think tank focused on how organizations [...]
Some thoughts on Size, Color, Usability, and Engagement I am consumed by doing what I can to make sure that my Tableau visualizations (both public and for clients) are, well, consumed. While Tableau excels at helping people explore data and turn information into insights, it is still all too easy to create dashboards that neither [...]
