This book is a tutorial-styled guide that offers investigative

journalists, bloggers, and other data storytellers a rich

discussion of visualization-creation topics, features,
and functions. This book allows data storytellers to
quickly gain confidence and expand their knowledge
on visualization-creation, and allows them to quickly
create interesting, interactive data visualizations
to bring a richness and vibrancy to complex articles.
The book takes you from basic concepts in visualization
creation, such as connecting to data sources, cleansing
data, chart types, common functions, map creation, and
publishing to the Web, to more advanced functions.
It is a great overview and reference guide for beginner
to intermediate-level Tableau Public data storytellers,
and covers the creation of Tableau Public visualizations
of varying complexity.

Who this book is written for

Connect to various data sources and

understand what data is appropriate
for Tableau Public
Understand chart types and when to use
specific chart types with different types
of data
Join and aggregate data for use in Tableau
Public data stories
Discover the features of Tableau Public,
from basic to advanced
Involve calculations in Tableau Public
Build geographical maps to bring context
to data
Create dashboards from one or more
separate data visualizations
Create filters and actions to allow greater
interactivity in Tableau Public visualizations
and dashboards
Publish and embed Tableau visualizations
and dashboards in articles
$ 34.99 US
22.99 UK

"Community
Experience
Distilled"

Ashley Ohmann
Matt Floyd

This book is targeted at investigative journalists and

bloggers with an interest in making rich and interactive
data visualizations. Intermediate Tableau Public users
and organizations can also use this book as a reference
guide and teaching aid. Members of media teams, such
as data specialists, web developers, editors, producers,
and managers, can also benefit from an understanding
of the structure and challenges of writing an interactive
and interesting data visualization using Tableau Public.

What you will learn from this book

Creating Data Stories with Tableau Public

Creating Data Stories

with Tableau Public

C o m m u n i t y

D i s t i l l e d

Creating Data Stories

with Tableau Public
Illustrate your data in a more interactive and interesting
way using Tableau Public

Prices do not include

local sales tax or VAT
where applicable

Visit www.PacktPub.com for books, eBooks,

code, downloads, and PacktLib.

E x p e r i e n c e

Ashley Ohmann

Matt Floyd

In this package, you will find:

The authors biography

A preview chapter from the book, Chapter 2 'Tableau Public Interface
Features'
A synopsis of the books content
More information on Creating Data Stories with Tableau Public

About the Author

Ashley Ohmann started her career in technology as a Flash and HTML

developer at the Emory University School of Medicine while studying Classics as an

undergraduate at Emory University. After learning how to write SQL to help create
a fraud detection system for a client, she pursued information management and data
analytics as a vocation. While working for a multinational manufacturing company,
she was asked to evaluate Tableau Desktop and Tableau Server; consequently, her
team became one of the first to implement the suite of tools for their enterprise.
Ashley's career with Tableau's products has included work as a consultant, trainer,
and a professional services practice director. She is a frequent contributor to the San
Francisco and Phoenix Tableau User Groups.
A native of Highlands, NC and Atlanta, GA, Ashley is a proud alumna of Rabun
Gap Nacoochee School. She also studied German and Chemistry at Mount Holyoke
College before graduating from Emory. Ashley's roots go back to south Georgia;
she grew up listening to the stories of her large extended family, which inspired her
to spend her career helping other people learn how to tell their own stories using a
variety of media. Currently, she lives in the Pacific Northwest with her family, where
they enjoy skiing, the beauty of God's great creation, and practicing permaculture on
their 10 acre farm.

About the Author

Matt Floyd has worked in the software industry since 2000 and has held career
roles from project management to technical writing and business intelligence
analysis. His career has spanned many industries, including environment,
healthcare, pharmaceuticals, and insurance.
Matt's hands-on experience with Tableau started in 2008 after evaluating alternatives
to reporting and analytical software used by his clients. Since then, he has been a
technical writer, implementation engineer, consultant, developer, and analyst in BI
projects. His passion for Tableau stems from his fascination of discovery through
data and the art, science, and power of data visualization. He is currently interested
in text mining and the combination of that data with powerful visualizations that tell
fascinating stories. He and his family live in metro Atlanta, and when not stuck in
traffic, he sometimes offers musings on his blog covering various visualization topics
at http://floydmatt.com/.

Preface
Tableau Software is on a mission to help people see and understand their data.
Tableau Public, which is their free tool that allows anyone to publish interactive
visualizations in the cloud, is a tremendous step toward democratizing data by
providing tools to data journalists, bloggers, and hobbyists that previously would
have been available only through corporate IT departments.
When we initially started off this project, our goal was to describe the features of
Tableau Public so that you can create your own stories with data and then share them
with the community. We also wanted to provide examples of how members of the
online community have used Tableau Public to draw attention to important issues of
our time. In the intervening months, many things have transpired: in addition to the
important features in Tableau version 9.x, the online community has multiplied in
size, about 500,000 people a day use Tableau Public, as of this writing, and the Tableau
Foundation was established. Its mission is to use data to make a tangible difference
in the world through the involvement of data volunteers and by granting software
licenses to non-profit organizations that are dedicated to improving public health and
the lives of underprivileged populations around the world.
Tableau Public is only as good as the people using it, and as we progressed on our
own journeys with Tableau Public, we became engrossed in the data stories and
dialogue that people have created and curated, particularly those of the Tableau
foundation volunteers and others that have the express purpose of using data for
good. We have attempted to provide guidelines for you on how to craft a compelling,
rich story with data that enlightens others. Our examples focus on variations of the
World Bank indicators, and by the end of this book, we have crafted an example
dashboard that focuses on an issue that impacts everyone.

Preface

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Getting Started with Tableau Public, you will have an overview of the uses
and functions of Tableau Public, understand how dashboards are used, and how to
download and install Tableau Public.
Chapter 2, Tableau Public Interface Features, you will have an understanding of the
various features in Tableau Public, such as cards, shelves, and ShowMe.
Chapter 3, Connecting to Data, will teach you the various ways in which source data
can be formatted, and will explain some basic data modeling such as Dimensions,
Measures, and joins. You will also understand more about using multiple data
sources and data blending in dashboards.
Chapter 4, Visualization -Tips and Types, will present the types of visualizations
available for use in Tableau Public, and how to use them with their data.
Chapter 5, Calculations, will guide you how to best use calculations, basic statistics,
and predictive analytics in Tableau Public.
Chapter 6, Level of Detail and Table Calculations, will discuss how you can use Table
Calculations and Level of Detail calculations to enhance the comparisons that you
are making with data and also how to make them more dynamic and contextual.
Chapter 7, Dashboard Design and Styling, you will understand the basics of good
dashboard design, and have an overview of data visualization best practices using
Tableau Public.
Chapter 8, Filters and Actions, will explain how to build filters and actions for use in
their dashboards.
Chapter 9, Publishing Your Work, will familiarize you with the various methods to
embed data visualizations in blog posts, websites, and offline documents.

Tableau Public Interface

Features
The user interface for Tableau Public was created to be simple and intuitive. It comes
with three primary features (as discussed in Chapter 1, Getting Started with Tableau
Public), namely connecting to data, opening your work, and discovering Tableau
Public. Since Tableau Public is a tool for data discovery as well as data visualization,
the interface is designed to encourage discovery through the drag-and-drop features
for data. The user interface for Tableau Public is segmented into separate areas,
namely data elements, cards, shelves, and the canvas. The data is also divided into
two general categoriesdimensions and measures. By understanding how data
interacts with the user interface, you can design, configure, and polish chart objects
that will be built into worksheets. These worksheets can then be assembled into one
or more dashboards.
In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

The Tableau Public user interface

The side bar, including the Data window and the Analytics pane

The toolbars and menus

The Columns, Rows, and Filters shelves

The Marks card

The Filters and Pages shelves

The ShowMe card

[ 17 ]

Tableau Public Interface Features

Touring the Tableau Public user interface

In the previous chapter, we discussed how to download and install Tableau

Public. We also saw what the start screen looks like and how you can use it
to connect to data, explore your own work or that of others, or discover how
to use the tool. On opening either a data file or an existing workbook with
Tableau Public, you will see the worksheet view.
There can be one or more worksheets in a workbook. Tableau Public
extends this further by allowing you to place one or more worksheets
in a dashboard, with all of this contained within the workbook.

The starting point that appears when opening a new Tableau workbook is the
worksheet view. This is the working area where you can build your dashboard.
Let's take a quick look at it.
The visualization shown in the following screenshot uses data from the Federal
Aviation Administration (FAA) on every commercial flight at the domestic airports
of the United States in March 2015 to average the departure delay (in minutes) for
every weekday. You can download this data from http://www.transtats.bts.
gov/DL_SelectFields.asp?Table_ID=236&DB_Short_Name=On-Time. Also, you
can download the companion Tableau Public workbook from the profile of this book
at https://public.tableau.com/profile/tableau.data.stories#!/. We will
use this workbook to explore parts of the Tableau Public interface, as shown in the
following screenshot:

[ 18 ]

Chapter 2

The following are the parts of the user interface that are shown in the preceding
screenshot:

Workbook (1): This is the workbook title, which is the name given to the
workbook when you save it

Toolbar (2): This is where you can save your work, among other functions

Cards and shelves (3): These are the areas where you can add fields or filters
to the visualization

The View, or the Visualization (4): This is the graph itself

The ShowMe card (5): This prompts you to create different visualization
types based on the data selected

Sheet tabs (6): This allows you to create, rename, or duplicate sheets
and dashboards

The Status bar (7): This shows the aggregated totals of the marks on your
visualization

[ 19 ]

Tableau Public Interface Features

Data Source (8): Links back to data sources

The Sidebar (9): This contains both the Data window and the Analytics pane

The Start button (10): This takes you back to the home screen

The side bar

Our discussion about the parts of the user interface starts with the side bar because it
contains both the Data window and the Analytics pane. First, we will talk about the
Data pane. After that, we will discuss the Analytics pane.

The Data pane

The Data pane is where your data sources load. In addition to listing the fields in
your data source either alphabetically or by folder, the Data pane includes visual
cues that tell you the type of each field. The following screenshot shows the visual
cues of the Data pane:

[ 20 ]

Chapter 2

Tableau Public scans the contents of your data source, groups

fields into Dimensions, and Measures according to their field
type. Before you start working with your data, you should look
through the fields in the Dimensions and Measures panes to
make sure that each field is in the proper place.

The Data pane has the following five different sections:

1. The data source name (1): When you load data, you should provide the data
source with a name that identifies the contents, because that is what you and
your consumers will see when they download your workbook from Tableau
Public. Once you have added several data sources, you can condense their
window in order to save space and then select different sources from the
drop-down menu.
2. The Dimensions pane (2): This includes categorical fields with qualitative
data. The Dimensions pane typically consists of a string field, a date field,
and a field that has geographical attributes, as well as unique identifiers, such
as ID fields.
3. The Measures pane (3): This usually includes quantitative fields with
numerical data that can be aggregated. Tableau Public will automatically
group numerical fields, except the ones with the ID string in the name as
measures.
4. The Sets pane (4): This includes user-defined, custom fields that interact just
like dimensions and measures do. Sets pane can also create subsets of data
that you can use just like dimensions.
5. The Parameters pane (5): This includes dynamic placeholders that can
replace constant values in calculated fields and filters. Parameters are unique
to a workbook and not a data source. You'll see the parameters available in
your workbook no matter which data source you are viewing.
From the Data pane, you can can create fields for the Data window, as follows:
1. Right-click on the data source to edit it.
2. Click on the View Data icon to see a sample of your data set.
3. Click on the search icon (the little magnifying glass) to search for fields.
4. Click on the arrow that points downwards, which is the Context menu, to
create calculated fields, parameters, and change the sort/view options for the
Data window.

[ 21 ]

Tableau Public Interface Features

Visual cues
Within the Data pane, each field name is displayed, but there is also a visual cue that
tells you what type of field it is. Field types determine the function and capability of
joining data sources. In addition to showing the field type, Tableau Public allows you
to change a field's type by right-clicking on it and selecting the Change Data Type
option. The following list shows the fields and their descriptions:

The Abc field: This indicates that the field is a string field, which means that
the contents of the field may include letters, special characters, or numbers

The calendar icon: This indicates a date, datetime, or time field

The # sign: This indicates a numeric field that can have any type of native
numeric format, from bigint to decimal

The globe icon: This icon indicates that the field has geographic attributes

The paper clip icon: This indicates that the field is a group that you have
created in Tableau Public

The Venn diagram icon: This indicates a set

The parameters have their own data types, which can
be established when you create them.

The Analytics pane

The Analytics pane is next to the Data pane. You can access it by clicking on its
header. It provides you with the ability to add summaries, average lines, constant
lines, distribution bands, medians, boxplots, forecasts, and other visual analytics to
your visualization. You can then customize and edit them by using the reference line
and formatting user interfaces.
The Analytics that you can add are dependent on the data elements in your
visualization, which include the following:

Summarized Analytics: This includes the following elements:

A constant line: This is an integer on an axis that you can input

An average line: This displays the mean of the measure that you have
selected either across the table, pane, or cell
Median line with 25% and 75% quartiles: This creates a median
reference line and a quartile distribution band that you can edit
A box plot
Totals and subtotals
[ 22 ]

Chapter 2

Modeling: This includes the following elements:

Average (or mean) with confidence intervals

Trend lines with the most commonly used models (such as linear,
exponential, and so on)

Forecast

Custom: With the help of this element, you can add custom reference lines
and distribution bands as well as box plots, which can also be used by
right-clicking on an axis

In the following screenshot, we added the average delay in minutes per day to the
graph as a reference line by performing the following operations:
1. Click on Analytics to see the Analytics pane.
2. Drag Average Line to the y axis, which is the vertical axis.
3. Select Table as the scope, as shown in the following screenshot:

Menus and toolbars

The menus in Tableau Public are arranged and named in a way that is similar
to those in other modern applications. Their primary uses are shown in the
following screenshot:

[ 23 ]

Tableau Public Interface Features

Let's look at each of them in the following list:

File: You can open and save your work to Tableau Public via this menu.
Remember that Tableau Public does not auto-save.

Data: From here, you can add new data sources and modify the
existing ones.

Worksheet: From here, you can create new worksheets, copy the
visualization or data on your worksheet, and modify the title, caption,
tooltip, and other features.

Dashboard: This is used to create and format dashboards as well as to add

actions.

Story: This is used to add Story Points, which enhance the narrative
capabilities of a data visualization. Story Points refers to a specific function
in Tableau Public, and it's beyond the scope of this book.

Analysis: This can be used to aggregate and disaggregate measures, create

forecasts, totals, and trend lines, and create and edit calculated fields.

Map: By changing the Map options, you can modify background maps and
images, and add custom geocoding and WMS.

Format: This is used to modify the appearance of visualizations.

Window: This can be used to switch between the presentation and

development mode as well as other views in the workbook

Help: You can use this to get help and manage performance.

The buttons on the toolbar are graphically descriptive of their function. When you
roll over each with your mouse, the instructions for use pop up as well.
The buttons of the toolbar include the following:

The Start button: This takes you back to the Start screen

The Undo button: This reverses the previous action that you took and can go
as far as back to the state of the workbook when you opened it

The Redo button: This repeats actions that you have reversed

The Save button: This is critical, as Tableau Public does not auto-save

Add New Data Source: This adds a new data source

Add New Worksheet: This adds a new worksheet

The Duplicate button: This duplicates the current worksheet

The Clear button: This clears the current worksheet

The Swap button: This swaps the fields on the Rows and Columns shelves
[ 24 ]

Chapter 2

Ascending: Sorts in ascending order

Descending: Sorts in descending order

Group: This is inactive in the view, as shown in the previous screenshot

Show Mark Labels

The Reset cards: These allows you to show legends and cards that you might
have hidden or removed

Fit: This allows you to change the fit of the visualization within a window

Fit Axes: This allows you to set axis ranges

Highlight: This allows users to click on dimension members and highlight

the related records in other visualizations on the dashboard

The Presentation mode: This hides the menus, the Data pane, or the
Dashboard pane

Canvas and Column/Row shelves

Tableau Software has a user interface that is very different from that of the older
reporting or data analysis tools that you may have used at work or in school. It uses
a methodology of dragging and dropping objects for most of the functions that you
need to perform to build a visualization. The areas of the workspace where you place
objects are called Shelves and Cards. Many of the tasks in this book instruct you to
drag a field to the Columns or Rows shelf.
The far right side of the screen is called the canvas area. It is where sheet objects,
such as a chart, are built. The chart area itself starts out blank, and you must drag
the fields that you want to analyze to an axis, header, or the Columns or Rows shelf,
which also determines on which axis or header the field appears.

[ 25 ]

Tableau Public Interface Features

In the following screenshot, we have highlighted the Columns and Rows shelves, the
canvas, the Marks card, the Filters shelf, and the Pages shelf. This screenshot shows
how the workspace looks before we add fields to it, and the description is as follows:

The Columns Shelf (1) is where you put fields that you want on the
horizontal header or the x axis, that is, the axis that goes from left to right.
The Rows shelf is where you put fields that you want on the y axis.

The Canvas (2) has three places where you can drop fields, namely the x
axis/header, the y axis/header, and the visualization space itself.

The Marks card (3) includes the controllers that are used to mark color, size,
text label, and shape. In addition to this, the level of the Detail and Tooltip
controllers allows you to control the appearance of the visualization. You
can change the mark type for each individual axis as well as control the size,
color, label, and shape. (Since the Marks card is critical to the function of the
visualization, we will describe it in depth in the next section).

The Filters shelf (4) is where you put fields that you want to use to limit the
values included in your visualization. After dragging a field onto the Filters
shelf, you can select values in the dialog box of that data element's Filters shelf.

[ 26 ]

Chapter 2

The Pages shelf (5) allows users to progress through your visualization based
on the fields that you put on it. For instance, you can use a date field on the
Pages shelf, and your users can click on changes over time without having to
manually select the subsequent values.

Using the Columns and Rows shelves

As discussed earlier, the fields that you place on the Columns and Rows shelves will
appear either on the x and y axis, or the row or column headers of the visualization
respectively. The following are a few new concepts related to the uses of these
shelves:

Once a field is on the shelf, it is referred to as a pill, or an active field

A pill on a shelf has a context menu

The context menu can be opened by clicking on the
small arrow that point downwards.

Instances of fields that are discrete will appear in blue, and continuous fields
will appear in green. The following is a description of both these fields:

Discrete fields have specific values, and the range of values is finite

Continuous fields, on the other hand, have an infinite range of values

with infinite possibilities

The Information Lab blog does a great job explaining the differences in
Tableau Public; you can have a look at the explanation by visiting http://
www.theinformationlab.co.uk/2011/09/23/blue-things-and-greenthings/

In case you have multiple pills on a shelf, the discrete pills appear first
because they are used to group fields, and the continuous pills appear second
because they are used to measure fields

[ 27 ]

Tableau Public Interface Features

The following screenshot shows an example of a basic graph that we created:

In order to create the graph shown in the preceding screenshot, we will perform the
following steps:
1. Drag Flight Date to the Columns shelf from the Dimensions pane.
2. Choose WEEKDAY as the part of the data that we want to show.
3. Add a set that we created that groups airlines by the criteria that
we established.

[ 28 ]

Chapter 2

4. When we drag the Flight Date field and the set to the Columns shelf, they
both appear in the column headers. Drag the Delay minutes from the
Measures pane to the Rows shelf.
5. When you do this, it defaults to aggregating as a SUM. Click on the Context
menu of the pill and change the aggregation to Average.
Next, we will discuss how to use the Marks card to add color and labels.

Using the Marks card

Another Tableau invention is the use of cards. Cards are containers for various
controllers: which are dialogs in the Tableau workspace that allow various data
elements and components to be configured. The most important card is the Marks
card, which is in the most current version of Tableau Public. It has combined various
controllers into one.
The Marks card is a compact yet highly functional area of the worksheet view that
contains different controllers for data element chart properties (these data points on
a chart are called marks). To use the Marks card, drag and drop data elements onto
a corresponding shelf (such as Colors, Label, and Size). This will change the chart
visualization by changing the chart mark properties.
The different controllers on the Marks card, which are commonly referred to as
shelves, include the following:

Colors: This changes the colors of marks in the chart (such as bar or line
colors). In our example, the Set that shows whether an airline is in the top
five worst airlines according to their average delay time is on the Color shelf.

Size: This configures the sizes of data points or elements in charts.

Label/Text: This adds a label to the chart for data points, bars, groupings,
or lines. In our example, the percentage difference in average delay time
between the top five worst airlines and all the others is on the Label shelf.

[ 29 ]

Tableau Public Interface Features

Details: This adds details to the chart or data points, allowing you to keep
the main structure of the chart. However, it further categorizes it in detail
and with more granularity. For example, if we add Unique Carrier to the
Detail shelf, our visualization will aggregate the average departure time by
day for each Unique carrier, which means that there is now a bar segment
for each carrier, and the story that our graph tells will change dramatically,
as shown in the following screenshot:

Tool Tip: This allows you to add context and calls to action, which are critical
for telling stories because they instruct users how to progress to the next step
and they better illustrate how a data point relates to a user's interests.

Shape: This sets the data point shape in the chart visualization.

Path: This is typically used for routes on a map. This controller allows a path
to be sequentially built and placed on a map visualization. This is commonly
seen in tornado and hurricane tracking maps visualizations.

[ 30 ]

Chapter 2

Once a field is on a shelf on the Marks card, it shows up under the shelves with
a small icon for the shelf type followed by the field name, as shown in the following
screenshot:

You can change the shelf on which a field is placed by clicking on the small icon
and then selecting the shelf to which you'd like to move the field, as shown in the
previous screenshot.

The Filters and Pages shelves

The Filters shelf is where you drag fields to limit the data points that your users
see in your visualization. When you drag it to the Filters shelf, Tableau Public will
prompt you to filter a field according to its type.
You can also filter a visualization based on the inclusion in a Data set. If you want
to show the filters to users, you can right-click on the fields in the data window to
Show Quick Filters as well. We will describe filtering in depth in future chapters.
In the following screenshot, we have added WEEK(Flight Date) to the Pages shelf.
The controller appears here. We can set the speed at which the visualization changes.
In the Tableau Public desktop client, the visualization will progress sequentially once
you click on the Play button. However, online, it will not progress automatically.
Your user will need to click on the Play button to proceed.

[ 31 ]

Tableau Public Interface Features

Since the functionality is limited online and that is where your users will interact
with your work, we will condense the discussion of the Page shelf:

The workspace control tabs of Tableau Public

The tabs at the bottom of the Tableau Public screen are either sheet or dashboard
tabs. The tabs with a series of rows and a column on them are sheet tabs, where you
can design objects that fit on one sheet. The tabs with a rectangle divided into four
quadrants are dashboard tabs, where you can add one or more sheets in order to
form a unified dashboard. When you click on one of the new (blank) worksheet or
dashboard tabs, that tab opens and names the sheet or dashboard the next sequential
name, such as Sheet 3 or Dashboard 2. The sheet or dashboard is blank when you
first open a new tab.

[ 32 ]

Chapter 2

A dashboard is really just a group of worksheets on the same page.

You can assemble a dashboard after creating the various component
worksheets that it will contain. Dashboards are assembled and
configured by using the Dashboard tabs in Tableau Public, which are
available in the lower row of the tabs in the Tableau Public interface.

The lower-right hand side of the Tableau Public interface also contains three
workspace control tabs, as shown in the following screenshot:

Let's take a look at each of these tabs:

Show Sheet Sorter: This shows the sheets in your workbook and allows you
to reorder them easily

Show Filmstrip: This shows the visualization with the thumbnails of other
worksheets, which is shown in the previous screenshot

Show Tabs: This shows the default view of the visualization and the named
tabs of other worksheets, as shown in the previous screenshot

The Show Me tool

A very useful tool in Tableau Public is the Show Me tool, which is available as a
floating window when you click on the Show Me button on the upper-right hand
side of the Tableau Public interface.

[ 33 ]

Tableau Public Interface Features

This tool, as shown in the following screenshot, is a helpful aid when you wish to
select various chart types that can be used with your data:

The Show Me tool is an optional tool. Charts can be

created without any help from this tool.

The Show Me tool also contains a list of tips to add data to shelves and cards, such as
the number of dimensions and measures necessary to create the desired chart type.
The Show Me tool also suggests graph types based on the view that the user has
created and/or the fields that the user has selected from the Data window. Based on
the selections and the chart type selected in Show Me, the tool also instructs the user
what field types are needed to create a certain graph type.
For example, selecting a continuous date field will make the Show Me tool prompt
the suggestion of a line graph. Selecting a geocoded or latitude/longitude field will
make it prompt the selection of a geographic map.

[ 34 ]

Chapter 2

In Chapter 4, Visualization - Tips and Types, we will discuss the Show Me tool in detail
and have an overview of the chart types that are available in Tableau Public. Many of
these chart types are covered by the Show Me tool suggestions.
The Show Me tool dialog does not auto-hide once the user makes
a selection from it. Click on the Show Me button again to hide the
Show Me tool dialog.

Summary
In this chapter, we learned the Tableau Public user interface, from the welcome screen
to the worksheet and dashboard tab views. We discussed the concepts of shelves and
cards, walked through an example of how the Marks card affects a data visualization,
and had a look at how to create a dashboard from the various worksheets created in a
Tableau Public workbook. Lastly, we discussed the Show Me tool and how it can aid
you in choosing appropriate data visualization types for your data.
In the next chapter, we will discuss the various chart types that you can create in
Tableau Public and what some of the best practices and uses are for the chart types.

[ 35 ]

Get more information Creating Data Stories with Tableau Public

Where to buy this book

You can buy Creating Data Stories with Tableau Public from the
Packt Publishing website.
Alternatively, you can buy the book from Amazon, BN.com, Computer Manuals and most internet
book retailers.
Click here for ordering and shipping details.

www.PacktPub.com

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