Freakalytics®

Practical Analytics for Better Decisions

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Webinar today–What can visual analytics & big data do for you? (3 PM Eastern)

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In this 45 minute webinar, Stephen McDaniel will review visual analytic examples and demonstrate what big data analytics can do for you. Stephen will demonstrate this using Tableau 8.

Visual analytics- how is it different than traditional analytics?
Review several examples of visual analytics and how they empower decision-makers quickly and clearly
Build new analytic content from scratch in a matter of minutes

If time permits, a brief question and answer session will follow.

Register here

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Joyful circle charts or informative bar charts? Best practices in visual analytics

Small_packed_bubble_chartStephen Few, noted visual analytics expert and the original inspiration for our work in the field, recently wrote about criticisms of best data visualizations practices by people who should know better. In particular, Amanda Cox of the New York Times said, “There’s a strand of the data viz world that argues that everything could be a bar chart. That’s possibly true but also possibly a world without joy.” And Nathan Yau of Flowing Data wrote, “in visualization you eventually learn that there’s more to the process than efficient graphical perception and avoidance of all things round. Design matters, no doubt, but your understanding of the data matters much more.” These are both people who have a body of work that I admire but I am also surprised at these comments.

This discussion reminds me of a similar problem in marketing and web analytics. Generating traffic that leads to sales is good. Eventually, someone finds a way to generate traffic that leads to not many new sales, but management is misled to think this must be good since traffic leads to sales. This is similar to “look, this chart is beautiful“, but hard to interpret or understand. So, while we delivered fun graphs, minimal information is shared. This may be good for traffic, but not so much for higher sales.

I suspect that part of this recent criticism can be traced back to Stephen’s recent criticism of Tableau, “Tableau Veers from the Path“. In it, he mentions a new graph type in Tableau, packed bubble charts and contrasts them with bar charts. This is an example of the “avoidance of all things circular”. Is Stephen truly anti-joy? Will an example show him to be wrong? Let’s give it a try and you can judge for yourself.

Here’s a packed bubble chart example

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Tableau Tips: Nested sorting not as expected- a simple fix

Many students have been confused about the Tableau data sort behavior.  A common question is how to sort the data at a lower level correctly within each higher level of data in a view.  One student recently came to us with this view and asked, “What’s up? I thought it would sort each state independently within each Product Type! In the first group, Herbal Tea, Nevada is clearly number one yet it is shown in the fourth position.”

 

Tableau_Tips_Nested_Sorting_1_Freakalytics

 

Solution

I replied that Tableau was sorting State overall across every product type once for the entire table and then displaying this sort order for every Product Type.  She said this is “stupid, how can I fix it! I wasted hours trying to fix it already.”

Login to see the solution including a solution workbook! If you haven’t joined Freakalytics yet, it’s free and easy.  Just click signup.

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Freakalytics Timeline since 2007

Freakalytics_Timeline_Since_2007_Map

Click for the detailed timeline of Freakalytics activities

 

Since 2007, we have traveled 365,000 miles
to help tens of thousands of people via

8 books,
24 conference talks,
47 public trainings,
26 on-site trainings,
5 conference seminars,
15 analytic advisory engagements
and 36 consulting projects.

Click to review our detailed timeline.

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Rapid Graphs with Tableau 8 – now on Amazon

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Rapid Graphs with Tableau 8
The Original Guide for the Accidental Analyst

+ Written by Tableau insider & product manager,
  teaching Tableau to thousands since 2009

+ Real-world examples that you can follow include
  tips and tricks to save you time

+ High-def videos & solutions

+ New dashboard section taught at MBA programs

+ The fourth edition–proven & trusted

+ Buy it on Amazon

 
 
 

Tired of boring spreadsheets and data overload from confusing graphs? Master the art of rapid graphs with Tableau! Our hands-on case study approach and more than 225 illustrations teach you how to quickly explore and understand your data to make informed decisions in a wide variety of real-world situations. We include best practices of visual analytics for ideas on how to communicate your findings with audience-friendly graphs, tables and maps.

“A picture is worth a thousand words” is a common saying that is more relevant today than ever as data volumes grow and the need for easy access to answers becomes more critical. This book covers the core of Tableau capabilities in easy-to-follow examples, updated and expanded for Version 8, as the fourth edition of the first book on Tableau. Learn how to be successful with Tableau from the team that started the original training program as the founding Tableau Education Partner!
 
 
“A must read for anyone interested in Tableau. Clear explanations, practical advice and beautiful examples!”
Elissa Fink – Chief Marketing Officer, Tableau Software

“A great work- this is going to be a much-loved book.”
Marc Rueter – Senior Director of Technology, Consulting and Strategy, Tableau Software

“Well written, easy to use book that has something for everyone.
  A great resource if you are new to Tableau… but also useful tips for advanced users as well.”
Bob Morrison – Founder/CEO, Quadrant Arts Education Research and Chairman at MakeMusic
 
 
Stephen McDaniel
Stephen is passionate about helping people understand, present and take action with their data. He is author of SAS for Dummies, The AccidentalAnalyst and the Rapid Dashboard Reference Card. He has been on the Faculty of The American Marketing Association and The Data Warehouse Institute and is currently Director of Analytics at Tableau Software and Principal Analyst at Freakalytics, LLC.

Eileen McDaniel
Co-founder of Freakalytics, Eileen directs the development of books and course materials. She is lead author of The Accidental Analyst: Show Your Data Who’s Boss. This book provides a step-by-step analysis framework to help people who didn’t plan for a career as an analyst, but now must analyze data quickly and effectively.
 
 
244 pages
Black and white
 
 
+ Buy it on Amazon

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Precise layout of filters and legends when exporting from Tableau to PDF and image files

 
A reply to a recent Tableau User Forum Idea, “Option To Place Legend Horizontally Across Bottom For Image And PDF”.
 
 
 
 
 
A Solution
This can be done, but not on the worksheet. If you move it

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Data Driven Conference 2012 and our special discount for attendees

We are having a great time at the Data Driven Conference in Columbus! Our first session was standing room only and we are presenting the same talk a second time at 1:30 in E161.

Interesting questions include “how do you become better at asking the right questions that lead to better analysis” and “how do you communicate with IT to get better data”?

To buy The Accidental Analyst directly from us at the special attendee discount, please visit www.AccidentalAnalyst.com/ddc and place your order before this Thursday.

Here is our infographic that we created

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Patriotic colors and maps in Tableau (US colors)

 
While preparing for a conference, we decided to create a map to show the US states using patriotic (US flag) colors.  The colors of the US flag are precise, so we needed to modify the Tableau preferences file to use the correct colors (also, white is not part of the Tableau color palette for discrete data items.)

After modifying our Preferences.TPS file with a new US Flag color palette and saving it to My Tableau Repository (a directory, typically in My Documents), we were able to create the red, white and blue map of the US!  To download the Maps, a sample workbook and the changed Preferences.TPS file, just log in below.

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