Tableau – Keeping it Simple, Stupid

Tableau – it’s a really simple tool to use. I’ve recently been blogging about ensuring we keep Tableau simple, and also show our failures as much as our successes. My recent Periscope talk was on that subject – catch the replay here– and I also blogged on edge-cases and my feelings about them. I want this blog post to continue that theme and so I’m going to talk about my personal mission to keep my Tableau visualisations simple.

We have an amazing community

The Tableau community is full of experts, it has people pushing the boundaries of the tool and also showing how to create fantastic vizzes that delight and amaze, and it also have brand new people joining every day. Experts help new users and share blogs, tips and techniques to help them get started, they offer critique, and you never see anyone’s viz efforts ridiculed or flamed. We simply couldn’t wish for a better community.

Despite this awesome community many new users I speak to are often put off sharing their work because of the high level of vizzes out there. They worry their work simply isn’t up to scratch because it doesn’t offer the same level of complexity.

So, in time for Valentine’s Day, I’m offering new users a Tableau KISS – Tableau, Keeping it Simple, Stupid.

#TableauKISS

This “project” will see me keeping my work simple, in an effort to show what’s possible without straying into advanced territory. I’m going to stick to basic chart types and try to only use techniques featured in the Tableau Fundamentals course.

You’ll see tutorials, videos, talks and revizzes over the coming weeks and months; anything on this theme will feature the #TableauKISS hashtag on twitter and I’ll add the logo to vizzes and blogposts.

#TableauKISS isn’t about discouraging others doing complex work and vizzes in Tableau – far from it – I love seeing the fantastic vizzes that the community produces.  I’ve always enjoyed creating my own wacky vizzes, many of which pushed Tableau to the limit, and I know they offered inspiration to other users, new and old. So I beg the community to keep pushing the envelope with Tableau.

This is for me. I simply want to reconnect with why I find Tableau so engaging: because it enables me to do understand data, quickly and simply.

I encourage anyone in the community interested in sharing in this project to use the hashtag and logo if they wish. Let users, new and old, embrace simplicity. Do yourself a favour – give a #TableauKISS!