Using Tableau for Data Visualization

June 16th, 2009

Brad Feld at Technology Review gave Tableau a whirl for some personal data visualization. He used a online beta version to play with some data.

After I played around it with some, the data wizards at Tableau took
over and created the widget that you see above.  There are a few
things to note about it:

  • It is a live exploratory visualization, not a static chart. 
    You can select workout days, highlight across views to see heart rate,
    or filter to different kinds of activities.
  • This was done with no custom development. Typically interactive
    visualizations like this take a lot of custom flash work; with Tableau
    anyone can create and publish an interactive visualization with drag
    & drop ease.
  • Tableau’s vision with this product is to set data free on the
    web. They want to make real data, no charts, accessible to people so
    they can question conclusions and offer their own analysis.

The visualization above is static but on Feld’s blog, they are interactive.  So check it out and tell him I sent you!

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