Mundane charts are those basic ones that all data visualization beginners can create, possibly with Show Me in Tableau. They are the boring ones at times because many people tend to create fancier ones just to show off. 

I actually like the mundane ones a lot because they are not only easy to create but also easy to be read by the stakeholders.

Pareto chart is a very powerful tool, providing great insights into the data set and into the business at stake. It shows how a majority of outputs may come from a high concentration of inputs. It may bring risk to business as described by Sharon.

Pareto is usually created as a standalone chart. Here I would like to present a simple technique that allows us to embed Pareto insights into some rather mundane charts that everyone can create. This way we all can use simple charts to show great insights to our stakeholders.

Bar Chart with Pareto Insights

Let's build a bar chart showing the sales by state using the Superstore data set. Nothing extraordinary.

  1. Sort the State dimension by Sales, descendingly.
  2. Create the following formula, compute over the State and place it on the Color shelf.
Voila. By simple coloring, we just added Pareto insights to the bar chart, thus showing the top 15 states (by sales) that contribute ~80% to the total sales. The top 15 states make up ~30% of all US 50 states.

In addition to the common ranking by sales, we now have Pareto stats: 80% of sales by 30% of states.

This may make the chart more valuable to the stakeholders as an analytical tool. For the viz designer, it doesn't cost anything.

More Mundane Charts with Pareto Insights

In the same token, we can add Pareto stats to other mundane charts as below which includes Horizontal Bar chart, Map, Bubble chart, Treemaps, Pie chart and a table. The map with Pareto insights is particularly interesting. It visualizes where the top states by sales are located, which make up 80% of national sales.



You can download the workbook to look into the implementation details.

More Pareto Details

We may add more Pareto stats to the chart by placing them in the tooltips. You can get the formulas from the workbook
Leave comments if you have questions.
0

Add a comment

Creating In-Place Help Page for Tableau Dashboards
Accommodating Variable Height in a Text Table in Tableau
A 30-Day Learning Plan for Mastering Tableau
A 30-Day Learning Plan for Mastering Tableau
Embedding Mundane Charts with Pareto Insights
Creating Pareto Chart Multiples in Tableau
A Preview of Sankey Chart Type in Tableau 2024
AI's Perception of People Looks in USA
1
AI's Perception of Top US Banks as a Dog
Multi-Level Sankey with the New Sankey Chart Type in Tableau
A First Look into the New Sankey Chart Type in Tableau
Visualizing Cross-Tab Tables with Column Sort
1
A Couple of Mismatches in Tableau's Map
Converting Date to Fiscal Calendar Date in Excel
Converting Date to Fiscal Calendar Date in Tableau
Resolving Simpson's Paradox: The Whole vs The Parts
#TweakThursday: Horizontal vs Vertical Bars
Recreating Datasaurus Dozen in Tableau
Rendering Anscombe's Quartet in Tableau
How to install database drivers for Tableau in Mac
Drawing Line Charts without Axis Offset in Tableau
Charting "Top N and Others" via Table Calculations in Tableau
Calculating YoY of Quarterly and Yearly Sums in Tableau
Imagining Tableau Social
Imagining Tableau Social
Imagining an Enhanced Formula Editor for Tableau
Imagining an Enhanced Formula Editor for Tableau
Filtering Partial Date Period in Tableau
How to Send Email from Tableau with a Template
How to Make Phone Calls from Tableau via Cisco Jabber
Labeling Trellis Chart via Stacked/Shared Axis
Sizing a Trellis Chart in Tableau
Placing Multiple Labels in Trellis Chart
Creating Compact View of a Sparse Table in Tableau
Labeling Trellis Chart Anywhere in Tableau
3
Labeling Trellis Chart in Tableau
1
Computing Spearman's Rank Correlation in Tableau
Computing Cumulative Grand Total in Tableau
Filling Down in Tableau
Pre-Filters, Post-Filters and the Order of Operations in SQL
2
Charting Project Flow via Multiple Data Densifications
Calculating Period-To-Date/PoP with Indicators for Better Performance
Counting Consecutive Occurrences in Tableau
1
Creating Bridge Chart with ARR vs AOP
Calculating the Difference Between Any Two Points in Tableau
Drilling Down with Containers
Creating Sunburst Chart via Map Layers in Tableau
Simple Calculations for YTD/YoY, QTD/QoQ, MTD/MoM and WTD/WoW in Tableau
9
One Button Sheet Swap in Tableau
One Button Sheet Swap in Tableau
2
Coloring the Area between Two Lines in Tableau
Sorting 100% Stacked Bars by Percentage
Creating Kanban Board in Tableau
4
Multiple Bars and Lines in Layers
Referencing Another Data Source without Relationship in Tableau
2
Dynamic Date Granularity and Show Missing Grains
4
Creating Global Variables in Tableau
Creating Sankey Funnel Chart via Template
59
Creating a Simple Toggle Button in Tableau
Monitoring Data Source Delay in Business Dashboard
Analysis of Tableau's Multi-Variable Clustering Algorithm
Iris Classification via Clustering in Tableau
Always Showing Empty Columns in Tableau
Creating Date Range Filter with Dynamic End Date = Max Date
5
Visualizing Crosstab and Grand Totals
Getting the Last Date/Value/Variance in Tableau
A Template for 3-Stage Sankey Chart in Tableau
26
Deselecting Button on a Different Sheet
Deselecting/De-dimming Buttons in Action-Driven Sheet Swap
3
Game of Life in Tableau
Enhancing Text Tables with Visual Background
1
20 Calculation Use Cases: LOD vs Non-LOD
Nested Sorting and Hierarchical Nested Sorting in Tableau
1
Creating 3D Bar Chart via Custom Shapes
Creating Sankey Chart with Sorting/Grouping
5
Creating Sankey Chart with Grouping
4
Enhancing Chart Contrast #TweakThursday 43
Creating a Multi-Stage Sankey Chart via Template Cascading
13
Creating Radial Stacked Bar Chart in Tableau
11
Creating Waffle Chart Multiples in Tableau
Creating Waffle Chart from a Single Percentage in Tableau
Creating Hierarchical Bar Chart in Tableau
Hiding Subtotals at Single Subcategory in Tableau
3
Making Label Text Wrap in Tableau
9
Accessing Excel Files on SharePoint from Tableau
Accessing Excel Files on SharePoint from Tableau
Creating Bar Chart Multiples In One Sheet 2/2: Different Measures
Creating Bar Chart Multiples In One Sheet 1/2: Same Measure
Using Color to Reveal More Insights #TweakThursday 42
Customizing Subtotals and Grand Totals in Tableau
4
Annotating Dual Axis with Alternative Color Legend #TweakThursday 41
A Divide-n-Conquer Approach to Counting Word Occurrence
Sorting Stacked Bars in Tableau
8
256 Cellular Automata in One Sheet
Creating Polygon Hex Maps in Tableau
Creating Joy Plot in Tableau With Fewer Steps
How Amazon failed to deliver: Analytical lessons
Polygon-based US Hex Map Revisited
Visualization, Data and Tableau Eco System
Creating Sankey Chart as Easy as 1-2-3 in Tableau
62
Tableau Licensing Cost Visual Calculator
Tableau Licensing Cost Visual Calculator
Creating 3-Way Venn Diagram with Dynamic Labels
1
Placing and Aligning Labels on Small Multiples
1
#WorkoutWednesday 35 - Superstore Small Multiples Tiled Map with Quad Chart
Creating Polygon Circumscribing Graph #MathVizMonday
Blog Archive
Loading
Dynamic Views theme. Powered by Blogger. Report Abuse.