Chapter 6. Formatting a Visualization to Look Great and Work Well

Formatting is about more than just making data visualization look good. Presentation can make a huge difference in the way it is received and understood. As you move beyond making great discoveries and performing great analysis, you'll want to consider how you will present the story of the data.

Tableau's formatting options give you quite a bit of flexibility. Fonts, titles, captions, colors, row and column banding, labels, shading, annotations, and much more can all be customized to make your visualizations tell a story well.

This chapter will cover the following topics:

• Formatting considerations

• How formatting works in Tableau

• Adding value to visualizations

Formatting considerations

Tableau employs good practices for formatting and visualization from the time you start dropping fields on shelves. You'll find that the discrete palettes use colors that are easy to distinguish, fonts are generally acceptable, grid lines are faint, and numbers and dates follow the default format settings defined in the metadata.

The default formatting is certainly adequate for discovery and analysis. If you are focused on analysis, you may not want to spend too much time fine-tuning the formatting until you have moved on in the cycle. However, when you start to consider how you will communicate data to others, you will need to contemplate how adjustments to the formatting can make a difference in how well the data story is told.

Tip

Sometimes, you will have certain formatting preferences in mind when you start your design. In these cases, you might set formatting options in a blank workbook and save it as a template.

Here are some of the things you should consider...

How formatting works in Tableau

Tableau uses default formatting that includes default fonts, colors, shading, and alignment. Additionally, there are several levels of formatting you can customize:

• Workbook level: The following type of formatting comes under this category:

  • Default field formatting: Using the drop-down menu on any field in the Data window, go to Default Properties | Date Format or Default Properties | Number Format. This sets the default format in Tableau's metadata and will be applied to any view where custom formatting has not been applied.

• Story level: When viewing a story, go to Format | Story (or Story | Format) to edit formatting for story-specific elements.

• Dashboard level: Dashboard-specific elements can be formatted. When viewing a dashboard, go to Format | Dashboard (or Dashboard | Format) to specify the formatting for dashboard titles, subtitles, shading, and text objects.

• Worksheet level: We'll consider the various options. The following types of formatting are...

Adding value to visualizations

Now that we've considered how formatting works in Tableau, let's take a look at some ways in which formatting can add value to a visualization.

When you apply custom formatting, always ask yourself what the formatting adds to the understanding of the data. Is it making the visualization clearer and easier to understand? Or is it just adding clutter and noise?

In general, try a minimalistic approach. Remove everything from the visualization that isn't necessary. Emphasize important values, text, and marks while de-emphasizing those that are only providing support or context.

Consider the following visualization:

Now let's consider this visualization:

Both the preceding charts are showing sales by quarter, filtered to the Office Supplies department. With the exception that the first view has the Department field on Columns in an attempt to make it clear that only office supplies sales are being shown, the field arrangement for the two views is exactly the same. The...

Summary

The goal of formatting is to increase the effective communication of data. Always consider the audience, setting, mode, mood, and consistency as you work through the iterative process of formatting. Look for formatting that adds value to your visualization and avoid useless clutter. With an understanding of how formatting works in Tableau, you'll have the ability to refine the visualizations you created in discovery and analysis into an incredibly effective communication of your data story. We'll look next at how it all comes together in dashboards.