Contents

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgments

About the Author

1 Storytelling in a Digital Era

A Visual Revolution

From Visualization to Visual Data Storytelling: An Evolution

From Visual to Story: Bridging the Gap

Summary

2 The Power of Visual Data Stories

The Science of Storytelling

The Brain on Stories

The Human on Stories

The Power of Stories

The Classic Visualization Example

Using Small Personal Data for Big Stories

The Two-or-Four Season Debate

Napoleon’s March

Stories Outside of the Box

Summary

3 Getting Started with Tableau

Using Tableau

Why Tableau?

The Tableau Product Portfolio

Tableau Server

Tableau Desktop

Tableau Online

Tableau Public

Getting Started

Connecting to Data

Connecting to Tables

Live Versus Extract

Connecting to Multiple Tables with Joins

Basic Data Prep with Data Interpreter

Navigating the Tableau Interface

Menus and Toolbar

Data Window

Shelves and Cards

Legends

Understanding Dimensions and Measures

Dimensions

Measures

Continuous and Discrete

Summary

4 Importance of Context in Storytelling

Context in Action

Harry Potter: Hero or Menace?

Ensuring Relevant Context

Exploratory versus Explanatory Analysis

Structuring Stories

Story Plot

Story Genre

Audience Analysis for Storytelling

Who

What

Why

How

Summary

5 Choosing the Right Visual

The Bar Chart

Tableau How-To: Bar Chart

The Line Chart

Tableau How-To: Line Chart

The Pie and Donut Charts

Tableau How-To: Pie and Donut Charts

The Scatter Plot

Tableau How-To: Scatter Plots

The Packed Bubble Chart

Tableau How-To: Packed Bubble Charts

The Treemap

Tableau How-To: Treemaps

The Heat Map

Tableau How-To: Heat Maps

Maps

Connecting to Geographic Data

Assigning Geographic Roles

Creating Geographic Hierarchies

Proportional Symbol Maps

Choropleth Map

Summary

6 Curating Visuals for Your Audience

Visual Design Building Blocks

Color

Stepped Color

Reversed Color

Color Effects

Opacity

Mark Borders

Mark Halos

The Truth about Red and Green

Lines

Formatting Grid Lines, Zero Lines, and Drop Lines

Formatting Borders

Formatting, Shading, and Banding

Shapes

Shape Marks Card

Custom Shapes

Summary

7 Preparing Data for Storytelling

Basic Data Prep in Tableau: Data Interpreter

Data Interpreter in Action

Handling Nulls in Tableau

Cleaning Messy Survey Data in Excel

Step 1: Surface Cleaning

Step 2: Creating a Numeric Copy

Step 3: Creating the Meta Helper File

Pivoting Data from Wide to Tall

Reshaping Survey Data with Tableau 10

Step 1: Creating Extracts

Step 2: Joining Data Sources

Summary

8 Storyboarding Frame by Frame

Understanding Stories in Tableau

Individual Visualizations (Sheets)

Dashboards

Story Points

The Storyboarding Process

Planning Your Story’s Purpose

Storyboarding Your Data Story

Building a Story

Making Meta Meaningful

Visualizing Survey Demographics

Act One: Demographic Dashboard and Key Question

Act Two: Questioning Character Aggression

Act Three: The Reveal

Summary

9 Advanced Storytelling Charts

Timelines

Bar-in-Bar Charts

Likert Visualizations

100% Stacked Bar Chart

Divergent Stacked Bar Chart

Lollipop Charts

Labeled Lollipops

Word Clouds

Summary

10 Closing Thoughts

Five Steps to Visual Data Storytelling

Step 1. Find Data That Supports Your Story

Step 2. Layer Information for Understanding

Step 3. Design to Reveal

Step 4. Beware the False Reveal

Step 5. Tell It Fast

The Important Role of Feedback

Ongoing Learning

Teach Yourself: External Resources

Companion Materials to This Text

Index