Designing Tableau Dashboards to Analyze Data

I love when professionals in a field also work with data in their field. Take, for example, the brilliant mind that is Katherine Peterson. She works with genomic data and explores it in Tableau. Now, this is a mathy profession where there’s norms about how to display data, as well as a serious swim in statistics.

She recently asked a question that got sticky in my head.

I referred her off to THE post on dashboard design from Kelly Martin, as well as mine on data literacy. It still rattled around in my head.

Tidy Spaces for Thinking

When do you clean off your desk? When I’m deep in the thick of it, you bet mine is a right mess. Sticky notes, papers, and 900 browser tabs are the symptom (okay, it’s only 138, but still…).

When we analyze data, we can make a monster mess. Often, it’s a sign of a good exploration. But, at some point, we tidy. We put it together so others can understand. Package wrapped, job well done, we put it away.

And that’s it, right? We change things when others ask.

In a reporting model, I’d agree. Yet, when we’re doing what Katherine is doing, we likely go back several times. Sometimes, we use what we’ve done to discuss ideas, we reference and talk others through it. And often, we notice what we’ve missed. We see where we need to clarify or look a little deeper.

We can also clean during the process. Sometimes, just cleaning helps us think differently. Take for example regional data. We often use maps for memorability and to see if there’s any spatial relationship.

Removing the map and adding in the regions adds to our questions. I’m looking at this map differently as the analyst and it changes my ‘what next’ direction. Without it, I’d explore only the states. With it, I also want to explore the effects of and relationships to regions.

Our users will also see this and recognize regions and states have a role. I’m also providing more context to them as well.

Quiet Spaces to Hear Your Voice

Ever try to read with the TV blaring? Chances are, you weren’t often successful. Reading to music, however, tends to work better, particularly if it’s instrumental. Rhythm can help us, but when that extra voice overlaps with our own, it makes it harder.

Analysis works this way too. How things look affect how we understand, what we explore, and ultimately what we let others find.

Borders and lines interrupt how we see and read charts. So, the numbers didn’t make sense where they were and needed moved to the top. Without a border on the title, they could go there. The map has a lot of extra information about Mexico and Canada, which creates a lot of white space that isn’t useful. The colors, picked while looking at the individual charts, make it hard to get a sense of what’s happening. Compare to the right where things are quiet. You can look, get a sense and not fight a rebelling attention span. How long did it take to see the ‘click here’ icon in each dashboard?

Sifting through Chaos

When we explore our data, we often find trends that are their own form of chaos. We add in color, filters, and various comparisons to understand our data. We might even start with the most chaotic chart first.

Which room looks the most comfortable? It’s hard to tell because there’s a lot going on. We can split this up, explore a few different ways until we get something that lets us pace ourselves. Every try to digest a lecture from a prof that was all over the place? We do this with analysis.

Ideas from Kelly Martin around simplicity, clarity, and efficiency tell to NOT cram all this together, so we don’t shove all the clothes in the closet. Instead, we take a moment, fold or hang them, and put things in proper places. Each chart helps us split this up more. And guess what? When we do this, MORE info fits on there and we get more clarity. This pacing and creation of layers gives us a chance to understand, form proper questions, and really understand what’s happening.

By thinking about our audience and spending time on clarity, we refine for ourselves. Sometimes, this helps us see new facets and encourages us to explore. Sometimes, splitting things up, removing excess flourish, or adding little bits provides a glimmer that leads to more discoveries.