Going the Distance: Maps, Calculations, and the Summer Olympics

Now that the Olympics are done and the results are in, it's time to look at the data. Using Tableau maps and some creative exporting, I was able to ask new questions about who won and why.

Do You Say Coke, Soda or Pop? A Map Visualization Shows Your Likely Answer

A good Tableau customer, Michael Cristiani of Market Intelligence Group, recently sent us a challenge. He had discovered a dataset for which people were surveyed about their choice of words for their preferred icy, carbonated beverage. Specifically, did they use the word “coke”, “soda”, “pop” or some other word? There were nice maps on the site but with Tableau 4.0’s new mapping capabilities, he wanted to know what we could do with the data. Given that I was in a hotel room when I read about this, I decided to give it a go with Tableau 4.0 (beats renting a bad movie) and came up with some interesting results.

Seattle Walkability

I recently relocated to Seattle to join Tableau Software, and as I searched for a place to live I realized that I could dramatically reduce my dependence on driving. I used WalkScore.com to find a neighborhood with great access to restaurants, stores and a vibrant community. The attached Tableau visualization shows how lucky I am to live and work in Fremont, the Seattle neighborhood affectionately referred to as "The Center of the Universe!"

Sparklines on Maps

One of the exciting new features shipping with Tableau 4.0 is support for map based visualisations. You may have seen demonstrations that place marks such as shapes, circles and even pie charts on maps. But did you know that you can also put small line graphs called sparklines on maps? It takes a bit of work, but with this recipe you can do just that and visualise your own geographically arranged trends.

Sparklines - Easier Than I Thought

I recently had to look at a lot of data categories as their values moved through time. I wanted to embed these graphs in a Word document to succinctly and effectively provide visual context to my discussion points. I originally thought I would use one graph with multiple color-encoded lines but realized that it would not be very effective in my document. There were too many lines overlapping each other and you couldn't really discern what was happening for each category.

I remembered what Edward Tufte and Stephen Few recommend - sparklines - and used Tableau to create them quickly and easily.

Tableau 4.0 Now Available - Mapping & Embedding Just 2 of the Major New Features

Tableau's 4.0 release is now available! This is no doubt one of our most significant releases. New features include one-click analytical map creation, usability enhancements to help both new and long-time users, and capabilities to embed and share live Tableau views with other applications such as Web applications, intranets and documents. Tableau 4.0 is available for download and a "new features" website has all the details.

Life Expectancy in OECD Countries

The Junk Charts blog had a posting about web publishing that included a comment by reader 'DavidS'. He suggested using quartiles in a chart about life expectancy in OECD countries. Since the data was easy to download, I explored his suggestion in Tableau. Although the original chart is a good summary of the upward trend of life expectancy, David is correct that a more statistical view showing outliers demonstrates that the variance has increased even though the range has reduced.

Wildflower Long Course 2008: Using Tableau to Analyze the Results of a Half-Ironman Triathlon

If you've ever competed in a triathlon and wondered how you did beyond your overall time and place, this blog post is for you. I've taken the results of the 2008 Wildflower Long Course triathlon and dumped them into Tableau. Let's see what we find.

Can You Improve this Graph?

One of the blogs I read regularly is Flowing Data, which discusses effective visualization techniques for making sense of data.  A recurring topic is a challenge to the readers: can you improve this graph? 

EagerEyes Blog Lists Top 10 Information Visualization Influences on Tableau’s Jock Mackinlay

I love it when people much more knowledgeable than I give me inside views into what shaped them. It’s fascinating to see what influenced them as they developed into the industry experts we know. EagerEyes.org, a terrific blog with lots of resources on information visualization, recently asked Tableau’s own Dr. Jock Mackinlay to name his top 10 influences.