Yesterday (6/23/2016) many Tableau fans around world witnessed the launch event of the Tableau 10 International Torch Relay on the internet. Before the event, I was invited to create a viz to mark the historical moment. It is quite an honor for me to create this viz. It gave me the opportunity to be part of it. You can see the viz embedded in the following web pages:

http://www.tableau.com/about/blog/2016/6/follow-tableau-torch-across-world-55877
Below I would like to address some details of the design choices. The viz uses visual tooltips to view larger pictures of the torch bearers and also of the cities. Hover your mouse over the icons and torches to see them.

1.Picture editing using PowerPoint
We used custom shapes for the torchbearers and for the cities (with a torch sign). These custom shapes are created and edited using PowerPoint, which has more picture editing functions than we care to know. I mainly used picture composition for the torchbearer badge and created transparent picture for the torch.
2.Background Images vs Custom Shapes
 Initially I used custom shapes for the city pictures. But the resulting picture was kind of blurred due to likely compression. So, I chose to use background images for the city pictures and the result is much better. The picture resolution seems retained.
3.Animated gif in viz
Usually vizzes look static. Sometimes a little animation may help the theme, depending on the context. So for this exciting event, I decided to spice up  the viz with an animated gif.

Tableau dashboard can accommodate animated gifs in Web Object instead of Image Object. The web object needs a URL pointing to the gif. However I don't have a website to host the gif. Then I loaded the gif to Google Slides.
Then I added the Google Slides in a web object to the dashboard, using the technique described here. I used blank containers to hide the borders of the slide.

That's all. You can download the workbook here.
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(Refresh the page if you want to view the gif image multiple times. Or go to Tableau Public and click the button at the top-right corner.)

Jake and I collaborated on a dashboard. He told me that he learnt a way to create an in-place help page in Tableau. He first saw it at a conference somewhere and couldn't recall who the speaker was. So I am blogging here about it but the credit goes to somebody else. If anyone knows who the original creator is, leave a comment below.

The key idea is to float a semi transparent worksheet on top of the dashboard, where a help text box is strategically placed on top of each chart. This way, we can explain how to view each chart and what data points are important, etc. This worksheet is collapsible by a show/hide button. 

Below I would like to show how this worksheet can be constructed.

1. Sheet with a single data mark.

  • Double click the empty space in Marks panel and add two single quotes. Make the null pill a text label. This creates a single null mark.
  • Set the view as "Entire View"

2. Create an show/hide button

  • Go to the target dashboard
  • Drag a floating vertical container to the dashboard, making it cover all the area of interest.
  • Drag the Single Null Mark sheet and drop it into the above container. Hide the sheet title.
  • Create an open/close button for the container and place the button at the top-right corner.

3. Add annotations

  • Format the sheet background opacity as 70% in the layout manager             
  • Select area annotations and place them anywhere of interest. 
  • Write help text and format it to highlight important messages.  
  • The text can serve as functional guide and/or insight guide.

Here is an example. Feel free to download the workbook and explore. Click the "i" button at the top-right corner to view the in-place help. 

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