Well presented data tells a story. When viewers can interact with the data, it goes beyond storytelling and encourages discussion and a search for insight into why x happened to y but not to z.
Enter Tableau Public.
This free tool (yes, free!) enables you to take data and share it on the web in visually attractive ways. Once published, others can interact with, and ultimately, discuss it.
I’ve often struggled with elegant ways of depicting data so that others can interact with it. I’ve tried using various Excel add-ins and websites. However, after going through the Tableau site and playing with some data depictions, this seems to fill a need that up to now has been woefully underserved.
If you’re more interested in deploying this tool in your company, you can get that here. It’s no longer free, but also does not appear unreasonably priced.
I have already downloaded Tableau and am looking forward to trying it out. If you have tried it, or after you’ve tried it, I’d love to see the fruit of your labors.
In the meantime, feel free to play around with this graphic on the perils of eating undercooked food.
