Preface xiv Acknowledgments xxvi About the Author xxvii 1. Welcome to Visual Analytics 1 A Visual Revolution 2 The Evolution from Data Visualization to Visual Data Storytelling 7 A Brief Look at the State of the Industry 9 From Visual to Story: Bridging the Gap 11 Summary 16 2. The Power of Visual Analytics 17 The Science of Storytelling 18 The Brain on Stories 19 The Human on Stories 21 The Power of Stories 23 The Classic Visualization Example 24 Using Small Personal Data for Big Stories 26 The Two-or-Four Season Debate 30 Napoleon''s March 32 Stories Outside of the Box 34 Summary 35 3. Getting Started with Tableau 37 Using Tableau 38 Why Tableau? 39 The Tableau Product Portfolio 42 Tableau Desktop 43 Tableau Server 43 Tableau Cloud 44 Tableau Prep 44 Tableau Public 44 Tableau Reader and Tableau Viewer 44 Getting Started 45 Installing Tableau Desktop 46 Connecting to Data 46 Connecting to Table 48 Live Versus Extract 51 Connecting to Multiple Tables with Relationships and Joins 52 Adding and Replacing Data Sources 55 Basic Data Prep with Data Interpreter 57 Navigating the Tableau Interface 58 Menus and Toolbar 59 Data Pane 60 Shelves and Cards 60 Legends 60 Understanding Dimensions and Measures 61 Dimensions 61 Measures 61 Continuous and Discrete 61 Summary 62 4. Keeping Visual Analytics in Context 63 Context in Action 65 Harry Potter: Hero or Menace? 66 Ensuring Relevant Context 67 Exploratory Versus Explanatory Analysis 69 Structuring Visual Analytic Stories 73 Story Plot 74 Story Genre 75 Audience Analysis for Storytelling 76 Who 77 What 77 Why 77 How 78 Summary 80 5. Fundamental Data Visualizations 81 The Bar Chart 83 Tableau How-To: Bar Chart 84 The Line Chart 88 Tableau How-To: Line Chart 91 Pie and Doughnut Charts 91 Tableau How-To: Pie and Doughnut Charts 93 The Scatter Plot 98 Tableau How-To: Scatter Plots 98 The Packed Bubble Chart 102 Tableau How-To: Packed Bubble Charts 103 The Tree Map 105 Tableau How-To: Tree Maps 106 The Heat Map 108 Tableau How-To: Heat Maps 109 Summary 112 6. Fundamental Maps 113 Connecting to Geographic Data 116 Assigning Geographic Roles 117 Creating Geographic Hierarchies 120 Proportional Symbol Maps 123 Choropleth Map 127 7. Design Tips for Curating Visual Analytics 133 Visual Design Building Blocks 136 Color 138 Sequential Color 139 Diverging Color 140 Categorical Color 143 Color Effects 145 Opacity 146 Mark Borders 147 Mark Halos 147 Pre-attentive Colors 148 Important Color Considerations 150 The Truth About Red and Green 151 Lines 153 Formatting Grid Lines, Zero Lines, and Drop Lines 156 Formatting Borders 160 Formatting, Shading, and Banding 163 Shapes 168 Shape Marks Card 168 Custom Shapes 169 Summary 173 8.
Structuring Analytics for Storytelling: Prep, Dashboards, and Stories 175 Basic Data Prep in Tableau: Data Interpreter 176 Data Interpreter in Action 177 Handling Nulls in Tableau 179 Pivoting Data from Wide to Tall 182 A Note on Preparing Survey Data for Visual Analysis 186 Storyboarding Your Visual Analytics 188 Understanding Stories in Tableau 189 The Storyboarding Process 198 Summary 200 9. Beyond Fundamenta.