Skill Level

Medium

Accessing the Tool

Tableau Public can be downloaded for free on the Tableau public page

General How-To

See Tableau’s resources section for step-by-step tutorial videos, including initial data setup.

Tips for Creating Effective Displays

• Get comfortable with Tableau’s “shelves” system, a drag-and-drop interface for variables. Moving elements to different shelves can dramatically change the display; experiment until you find a good fit. See figure 9 below for an example of different graphics automatically created from one data source in Tableau.
• Tableau has background data layers from census data, such as U.S. population and other demographics, which can be automatically overlaid in any map visual.
• Tableau autogenerates categories like “measure names” that can be dragged into the Details shelf to create custom labels.
• Experiment with the Color shelf for your data, which includes categorical and gradient features in attractive (and not-Excel!) themes.

Limitations

• For the free Tableau Public software, any saved workbooks are available online to the public—so do not use it for confidential data!
• For very large data sets or private data services, Tableau requires the purchase of a Tableau plan.
• When embedding this application, be aware that applications headings may appear that could be distracting for users.

Figure 11: Same data, six ways in Tableau: Percentage of Students Using Free or Reduced-Price Lunch, 1969-1985