Applying various marks
by Matt Floyd, Ashley Ohmann, Ashutosh Nandeshwar, Jen Stirrup
Tableau: Creating Interactive Data Visualizations
- Tableau: Creating Interactive Data Visualizations
- Table of Contents
- Tableau: Creating Interactive Data Visualizations
- Tableau: Creating Interactive Data Visualizations
- Credits
- Preface
- 1. Module 1
- 1. A Short Dash to Dashboarding!
- 2. Summarizing Your Data for Dashboards
- 3. Interacting with Data for Dashboards
- 4. Using Dashboards to Get Results
- 5. Putting the Dash into Dashboards
- 6. Making Dashboards Relevant
- 7. Visual Best Practices
- 2. Module 2
- 1. Connecting to Data Sources
- Introduction
- Connecting to text files
- Connecting to Excel files
- Connecting to Access databases
- Connecting to a SQL Server
- Pasting from a clipboard
- Connecting to other databases
- Connecting to Windows Azure Marketplace
- Understanding dimensions and measures
- Changing data types
- Applying filters
- Merging multiple data sources
- 2. Creating Univariate Charts
- 3. Creating Bivariate Charts
- 4. Creating Multivariate Charts
- 5. Creating Maps
- 6. Calculating User-defined Fields
- 7. Customizing and Saving
- 8. Exporting and Sharing
- 9. Exploring Advanced Features
- 1. Connecting to Data Sources
- 3. Module 3
- 1. Getting Started with Tableau Public
- 2. Tableau Public Interface Features
- 3. Connecting to Data
- 4. Visualization – Tips and Types
- 5. Calculations
- 6. Level of Detail and Table Calculations
- 7. Dashboard Design and Styling
- 8. Filters and Actions
- 9. Publishing Your Work
- A. Bibliography
- Index
Tableau provides various ways to encode data using different marks including Square, Circle, and Shape. The Square and Circle marks will show data points using a square or circle shape. By using the Shape mark, however, we can assign some attribute values to various shapes and help the reader distinguish data points by those shapes.
Let's use the sample file Sample – Coffee Chain (Access). Open a new worksheet and select Sample – Coffee Chain (Access) as the data source.
Once the data is loaded on the worksheet, perform the following steps to use various marks to denote the data points:
- While holding the Ctrl key, click on Market from Dimensions and Profit from Measures.
- Click on the Show Me button to bring the Show Me toolbar on the screen.
- Click on circle views on the Show Me toolbar.
- To change the shape, from the Marks pane, select Square or Circle from the dropdown as shown in the following screenshot:
- To use a different shape for every Market value, select Shape from the dropdown in the Marks pane.
- Drag-and-drop Market from Color into the Shape box to generate a chart shown in the following screenshot:
Although the Square, Circle, and Shape options may appear similar, they provide different ways to view and distinguish various data points. That is especially true in the case of the Shape option: as every attribute value is given a shape, it becomes easy to identify and note the different data points. In the case of many data points or many categories, however, identification and distinction of data points even with different shapes is challenging. To assist the readers, you should limit shapes to three to four attribute values.
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