Let Them have Their Text Tables

• By Joshua Milligan
• Posted in All, Dashboards, Storytelling & Commentary
• On August 20, 2015
• 4 Comments.

“I need you to reproduce this report,” your boss states as he hands you a printout. “And you can use Tableau!” For a second you are excited at the thought of using Tableau. But your excitement fades when you see the report you must reproduce:

 

It’s just a text table.

So, you point out to your boss that a little visualization of the data would tell a good story and bring the data to life.

Your boss considers this for a second and then responds that the table does tell a story.

“See,” he says. “I can very easily follow the story across the table: where we were last year, how many we hired, how many we fired, and where we ended. Now build the table before I decide to add 1 to the Involuntary Separations column!”

 

And there you are. In no time you’ve reproduced the cross tab in Tableau and saved your job:

But you feel like you could have done more. You should have done more. You are a data artist not a report factory worker!

Give them what they want… and more!

Sometimes you don’t have a choice. And sometimes a text table does serve a purpose (e.g. providing a way to lookup values or validate results). But you don’t have to stop at the simple table.

Look for opportunities to take that text table and add visualization elements that enhance the data story and help transition your audience from the old “I love rows and columns of numbers” crowd to the “bar charts are our friend” group. Let them have their text tables for now… but give them even more:

Your boss was right, the table did tell a story. So, give him the table he wants, but help transition him to the world of data visualization by adding some visual elements. The bar charts only add to the story and give the ability to easily compare the plain numbers.

The Best Part

The Best part is that it is (relatively) easy to accomplish. It’s just two views (1 – The original text table and 2 – a chart with the same rows/columns) in a dashboard with the 2nd view floating on top of the table. Here’s the second view from above:

And here it is, with the header for Employee Type and the axis hidden, floating on top of the text table:

Yeah, it took a little effort to match the formatting and line things up. But you have the pixel perfect positioning and sizing controls for floating objects, so it wasn’t too bad.

And you can experiment with different variations:

And now, you’ve kept the text table fan in their comfort zone while helping them see that visualization isn’t too bad.

“In fact,” your boss says, “it’s kind of nice. Wait, you learned that from a blog post?  Where can I Subscribe?”