Category Archives: DataViz
Here you’ll find tips and tricks for #dataviz and examples of data visualization.
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Draw circles with exact distance radius on maps in Tableau
Posted on April 24, 2018 by Joshua Milligan in All, Calculations, DataViz, Mapping / Geographic Visualization, New Features, Tips and Tricks.Tableau 2018.1 introduces a lot of new features, especially geospatial features that open a whole new world of data exploration and analysis. With support for SQL Server geospatial data types, there are near-infinite possibilities. I’m sure I’ll have more than a few posts on various options soon! Here’s one thing you can do: render circles […]
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Hex Map Spatial File
Posted on December 21, 2017 by Joshua Milligan in All, Data Shape & Structure, DataViz, Mapping / Geographic Visualization.I love hex maps! Especially for the United States, you can keep states in a basic geographic orientation, but eliminate the visual perception problems caused by the fact that some states are huge compared to others (and Alaska and Hawaii shift the scale when added). But there are a few headaches that can occur when […]
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Hot Swapping Geographic Levels of Detail in a Tableau Viz
Posted on November 13, 2017 by Joshua Milligan in All, Calculations, Data Blending & Joining, Data Shape & Structure, DataViz, Mapping / Geographic Visualization, New Features.I used to think you couldn’t hot-swap geographic levels of detail in a Tableau visualization. And, before Tableau 10, you couldn’t. I mean, of course in Desktop or web authoring mode you can drag and drop fields, but for the end-user of a dashboard that wasn’t an option. You might have thought to use […]
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The Need for Speed: How to build Tableau visualizations quickly
Posted on October 24, 2017 by Joshua Milligan in All, Dashboards, DataViz, Tableau Tip Tuesday, Tips and Tricks.I recently competed in the Tableau Iron Viz where Tristian Guillevin, Jacob Olsufka and I raced to build a dashboard in 20 minutes! One of the most incredible things about Tableau is how versatile it is as a tool. You can spend hours to build a stunning Tableau dashboard or just a few minutes to […]
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Don’t miss the miracle of Tableau: It’s more than just DataViz!
Posted on May 4, 2017 by Joshua Milligan in All, DataViz, Storytelling & Commentary.I was part of a conversation recently where something like this was said: “We need a data model that will bring all of our data together so that we can analyze risk and do predictive analytics… No, just build the model, don’t worry about using Tableau – we’ll do that after you build the model […]
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Design technique for Tableau dashboards: semi-transparent images
Posted on April 13, 2017 by Joshua Milligan in All, Dashboards, DataViz, Fun, Pushing the Limits, Storytelling & Commentary, Tips and Tricks.Wow! I’m still stunned to have won the first IronViz feeder contest for 2017! And excited! And humbled. And honored. Wow! Thank you to everyone who has had kind words of encouragement! You can read some broad description of my entry here: The Changing Shape of History: From the Colonies to the United States. In […]
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The Changing Shape of History: From the Colonies to the United States
Posted on March 23, 2017 by Joshua Milligan in All, Dashboards, DataViz, Mapping / Geographic Visualization, New Features, Storytelling & Commentary.I previously shared the fun I had with Tableau 10.2’s ability to connect to spatial files. In that case, I used historic shape files from the Newberry Library’ repository of historical county boundaries files. When I saw that the first Iron Viz feeder contest would feature spatial file visualization, I knew I already had an interesting data […]
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Storytelling with Data Visualization
Posted on March 17, 2017 by Joshua Milligan in All, DataViz, Storytelling & Commentary.Recently, I gave a presentation on storytelling with data visualization. I described the elements of a story, how to leverage the power of telling stories, and how to avoid dangers of data storytelling. Here is the story I shared:
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4 Dangers to Avoid in Data Storytelling
Posted on March 13, 2017 by Joshua Milligan in All, DataViz, Storytelling & Commentary.Stories are powerful. They connect an audience with people, facts, emotions and action. They help us understand difficult concepts and relationships. They help us make connections between things we wouldn’t otherwise. And we remember stories far better than we remember raw facts. Quick: list the last five vice presidents of the United States. Now tell […]
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Fun with spatial files in Tableau 10.2
Posted on February 22, 2017 by Joshua Milligan in All, Dashboards, Data Blending & Joining, DataViz, Dates, Fun, Mapping / Geographic Visualization, New Features, Storytelling & Commentary.Tableau 10.2 is almost here! And it’s time to celebrate! One thing I’ve always wanted to do in Tableau is create interactive historical maps that changed based on the selected time-frame. We are fairly familiar with the shape of things now – countries, states, counties – but how did things look in the past? What […]
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Joshua Milligan is a four-time Tableau Zen Master. His passion is training, mentoring, and helping people gain insights and make decisions based on their data through data visualization using Tableau.
He is a principal consultant at Teknion Data Solutions, where he has served clients in numerous industries since 2004.
Joshua served as technical reviewer on several Tableau titles and is the author of the book Learning Tableau.
