Creating histograms
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
Histograms show counts or density of a measure, which is then discretized (binned) to make counting meaningful. They are best used to observe the distribution of the measure. They are sometimes confused with plain bar charts, which can be modified to show counts but usually encode the measure value as the length of the bar.
Let's use the sample file, Sample – Superstore Sales (Excel). Open a new worksheet and select Sample – Superstore Sales (Excel) as the data source.
Once the data is loaded, perform the following steps to create a histogram:
- Drag-and-drop Profit (bin) from the Dimensions pane into the Columns shelf.
- Drag-and-drop Number of Records from the Measures pane into the Rows shelf.
- You should see SUM(Number of Records) in the Rows shelf now and also a histogram with a very narrow distribution, as shown in the following screenshot:
Histograms are very effective charts in observing the distribution of the measure of interest; however, sometimes the distribution is quite skewed or centered at one range or position, and in such cases rebinning (creating different bins is covered later in Chapter 6, Calculating User-defined Fields, in the Discretizing data recipe) assists the reader in observing the detailed distribution or uncovering some patterns.
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