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Presenting Data

Updated May 20, 2024 ·

Overview​

When creating a graph, it's important to focus on clarity and readability.

Formatting a Graph​

Here's an example of a poorly formatted graph:

  • Unclear title
  • No legend
  • Small font size
  • Missing axis titles

By improving these elements, the graph becomes much clearer.

Changes made:

  • Replaced one line with a bar chart to show global sales separately.
  • Added a clear title and increased the font size for better readability.
  • Labeled the axes and included a legend for easy interpretation.
  • The graph now shows video game sales by release year and region, with 2008 being the highest-selling year.

Formatting Tips​

To improve your visualizations, use these techniques:

  • Informative titles: Clearly explain what the graph shows.
  • Legible fonts and colors: Make sure the text is large enough and the colors are easy to distinguish.
  • Legends: Help viewers understand what different colors represent.
  • Axes titles: Label your axes to make them clear.
  • Tooltips: Add tooltips so users can learn more by hovering over the graph.

Tableau provides default formatting options that are easy to adjust if needed.

Workbook vs. Sheet Formatting​

You can format both at the workbook and sheet level.

  • Workbook

    • This is like an entire Excel file.
    • It contains multiple sheets.
    • Used to organize, save, share, and publish results.

  • Sheet

    • A single tab in the workbook, similar to an Excel tab.

    • There are three types of sheets:

      • Worksheets (used for creating visualizations)
      • Dashboards
      • Stories

Normalizing Graphs​

When comparing multiple graphs, it's important to use the same scale to prevent misleading differences.

In the example below, the chart on the left appears similar in peak to the one on the right, but it's actually much higher. This happens because they have different scales—the left graph peaks at around 34,000, while the right one peaks at about 8,000 (see their y-axis).

To fix this, manually set both axes to the same range:

  1. Right-click the axis on the first line chart.
  2. Select Edit Axis.
  3. Set Range to Custom and set the fixed end to 35,000.
  4. Repeat the same steps for the second chart.

See below:

Highlighter Filter Pen​

The highlighter pen helps focus on specific data without removing the rest—it dims everything else instead. In the example below, multiple lines overlap.

To highlight only the weekend data:

  1. Hover over the legend.
  2. Click the pencil icon in the top right.
  3. A horizontal pen icon will appear below it.
  4. Click and hold Saturday and Sunday to highlight them.

If no line appears under the pencil icon, the highlighter isn't active, and you won’t be able to highlight the data.

Lab: Workbook​

In the following examples, we'll use a dataset that tracks video game sales from 1980 to 2010.

Download the workbook here: 4_1_video_games_sales.twbx

Example: Dual-Axis Graph​

In this example, we'll use the video game sales dataset to compare global and European sales of Atari over time.

Steps​

  1. Set Release Year as the column and Global Sales as the row.
  2. Drag EU Sales to the right until a dotted line appears.
  3. Right-click and select Synchronize Axis.
  4. Ensure both axes have aligned numbers.
  5. Right-click the right axis and uncheck Show Header.
  6. Change Global Sales from Line to Bar chart in the Marks card.
  7. Center the title.
  8. Rename the Y-axis to "Video Game Sales (in millions)".
  9. Drag Publisher to Filters and select Atari only.

Solution​

Insights​

The graph shows Atari’s peak sales in the early 2000s, followed by a sharp decline, leading to bankruptcy in 2013.

Example: Filter by Genre​

Using the previous dataset, we'll filter by genre to find the "Puzzle" video game sales in North America.

Steps​

  1. Drag Measure Values onto EU Sales in the rows.
  2. This replaces EU Sales with Measure Values.
  3. Remove unnecessary measures from the Marks shelf:
    • Video Games (Count) (row count)
    • Global Sales (already in the bar chart)
  4. Currently, you need to hover each bar in the stacked bar to see the sales for each region.
  5. To change this, update the tooltip to show all sales data:
    • Select SUM(EU Sales), hold Shift, and click the last SUM on Marks.
    • Drag them to the Tooltip card.
  6. Hover over the graph. Sales for all regions should now appear in the tooltip.
  7. In the Filters shelf:
    • Filter Publisher to Nintendo.
    • Filter Genre to Puzzle.

Solution​

Insights​

The graph shows a major spike in 1989 due to Tetris, which made up almost 90% of puzzle game sales that year.

Example: Bar Charts and Colors​

This example uses a different workbook: 4_2_video_games_sales_global.twbx

Create a bar chart and apply three different Dimensions to color.

Steps​

  1. Drag Global Sales to Rows, while Release Year to Columns.
  2. Center the graph title and change font size to 16.
  3. Drag Name to the Color card in the Marks shelf.
  4. Ignore the warning and press "Add all members".
  5. Drag Genre to the Color card to replace Name.

Solution​

Insights​

Based on the Color card, we can see the that the Genre is the only dimension that adds extra information to the graph.