VISUALIZING DATA WITH TABLEAU
WELCOME
A hands-on workshop all about data visualization.
This two-hour, hands-on workshop is designed to help inspire and empower your data analytics efforts in 2021. With our time together, we will explore Tableau’s drag-and-drop interface using K-12 education data. As we build a variety of visualizations, we will unpack which chart types work best for different types of research questions, identify common visualization pitfalls to avoid, and discuss fundamental design and user experience principles that create intuitive and meaningful dashboard experiences for our audience. No matter what software you use on a daily basis, this workshop will help you take your data visualizations to the next level.
HOW TO PREPARE
Here’s what to do ahead of time to get the most out of our workshop.
1
Click here to download the data set for our workshop. This Excel workbook contains sample student test score data that we’ll use to build our visualizations in Tableau. You’ll also see two additional data sets you may want to explore in the future from the Atlanta Public School district, including attendance data.
2
We will spend most of our time together building visualizations in Tableau. Click here to download Tableau Public, a completely free version of this powerful software. Then install and launch the application on the laptop you will use during the workshop. If you happen to have Tableau Desktop, that will work perfectly too.
3
Finally, if you would like to save what you build during the workshop, go back to Tableau Public’s website and click Sign Up to create a Tableau Public profile. These credentials will allow you to upload your workbook and save it to Tableau’s cloud. Just remember: only save public data to your Tableau Public profile.
DOWNLOADABLE TABLEAU WORKBOOK
If you miss a step, don’t worry. Everything we build together is right here.
KEEP LEARNING
Here are a few ways to keep developing your Tableau skill set.
1
STRUCTURE YOUR DATA
Typically the hardest part of any Tableau project is getting your data properly structured, especially if the data has been curated by hand. Check out this Data Dozen session on preparing a data set for Tableau presented for the Kansas City Tableau User Group. You can also download all of today’s intro slides here.
2
The Tableau community is full of exciting ways to participate. Makeover Monday is a leader in this space who offers a weekly challenge where everyone remakes an existing visualization and then shares their creations. Diving into a new data set each week, even for an hour, will expand your skills exponentially.
3
The Tableau Public Gallery isn’t just a fantastic place to gather inspiration; it’s a wonderful learning tool. Pick the dashboards that you’d like to be able to build, download the Tableau workbook, and start to deconstruct the dashboard in Tableau. This reverse engineering strategy is how I got my Tableau start.
THANK YOU
We’d love to hear your thoughts about today’s workshop.
YOUR FEEDBACK
Data Dozen is on a mission of continuous improvement. We’re eager to incorporate your feedback as we build future workshops. Click the survey below to answer a few quick questions. Thank you!
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