#TweakThursday 18: Aligning Up Axis

After a first-time visit to the village in Lichuan, Hubei, Central China where my grandpa was born, I am back. I gained some new perspectives on the changes in the past hundred years.

The Viz of the Day on 10/12/2016 is about the spells in Harry Potter books. I didn't know that spells could be this powerful such that the author Skylar Johnson is invoked to create this special viz. Very nice work! I see that even the labels match the colors of the data marks, which is a new feature in Tableau 10.

One thing I found possible to tweak is the histogram bar chart at the upper part of the viz. It shows the number of spells in each of the 7 volumes of Harry Potter. Under it, is the circle chart where we also see colored divisions by book. I feel that they should be aligned.

So here is the result of the tweaking. The data marks I used are lines whose sizes are proportional to the number of spells. The lengths of the lines also align with the page positions.

Click the above images to view and download the interactive versions. Below is an enlarged view of the histogram on spells per book. The axis are custom adjusted to align with the circle chart.

(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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Vizible Difference

In search of data visualization excellence

1. Sheet with a single data mark.

2. Create an show/hide button

3. Add annotations

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