Communicating Data with Tableau

Good data visualization does more than make numbers look polished: it helps people understand what the numbers mean. In Communicating Data with Tableau, Ben Jones connects the craft of visual presentation with the practical work of building charts, maps, and dashboards in Tableau.

The book starts with a useful question—what are you trying to communicate?—then develops that idea through hands-on examples, from simple comparisons to interactive dashboards. It is a practical read for people who work with data and want to present it clearly, or give others room to explore it for themselves.

Start with the message, not the chart

Jones lays out six principles for communicating data, including knowing your goal, using suitable data, choosing an effective visualization, and checking the result. That framing keeps the focus on the reader’s understanding rather than on chart-making for its own sake.

Build a visual vocabulary for data

Chapters move through common analytical questions: how much, how many, how parts relate to a whole, how values vary, and how quantities change over time. Along the way, the examples address charts such as histograms, box plots, scatterplots, line charts, and slopegraphs, as well as ways to represent location with maps.

Bring separate views together

The later chapters focus on dashboards: choosing an explanatory or exploratory purpose, arranging sheets and objects, adding annotations and actions, and refining the presentation. The result is a steady progression from individual visualizations to a connected experience designed around what the audience needs to see or investigate.

A practical reference for Tableau users

Analysts, researchers, journalists, marketers, engineers, and other data communicators may find the examples useful when planning a report or building a Tableau view. The book’s software demonstrations use Tableau Desktop 8.1 and Tableau Public 8.1, so its interface instructions reflect the 2014 edition rather than later releases.