#TweakThursday 36: Designing for Viz-in-Tooltip

[This is No.36 of series #TweakThursday]

Jade Le Van created a very interesting viz with viz-in-tooltip which is based on one of her earlier endeavors. Now one single French map replaced those small multiples. Much more compact than before.

Again it picked my interest not only because of the graphics but also of the data and the context. Seems France is leaping forward to a marriage-less society. In terms of social changes, France is always leading the way.

So, I started to play with it and tweaked it a bit. And I would summarize here what I learnt by designing the viz-in-tooltip:

1.Include context in the tool tip
While the tip shows the graphical attributes of one data mark, we want to put it in the context of the entire data set, such as comparing with the aggregated results, the global average etc.

In the viz-in-tooltip, I added national average to contrast with the departmental data. Also I added the ranking relative to the other departments.

2.Minimize static content
Some text are the same from tooltip to tooltip. They do not provide additional information even though they are repeatedly used. So we don't need them so much. We should try to move them out of the tooltip, or use small font or light color to diminish their presence. The viz-in-tooltip got a small canvas. We don't want to clutter it with too much redundant stuff.

3.Highlight dynamic content
When we hover the mouse from one data mark to another to view tooltips, we are interested to view something particular to that specific data mark, something that changes from one to another, something that's dynamic.

So those content should be highlighted with big font, bright color etc. You got the idea.

4.Provide option to enlarge the viz-in-tooltip
Obviously the viz in tooltip is small, and the small viz is not interactive. Users might want to view more details. It is a good practice to provide an option to go to a bigger chart or dashboard. The URL action filter can enable this option. The sheet is readily available.

Voila, those are my thoughts on designing the viz-in-tooltip. Please share yours if any. Click image to go to the interactive version.

(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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