Preface

Tableau Software is on a mission to help people see and understand their data. Tableau Public, which is their free tool that allows anyone to publish interactive visualizations in the cloud, is a tremendous step toward democratizing data by providing tools to data journalists, bloggers, and hobbyists that previously would have been available only through corporate IT departments.

When we initially started off this project, our goal was to describe the features of Tableau Public so that you can create your own stories with data and then share them with the community. We also wanted to provide examples of how members of the online community have used Tableau Public to draw attention to important issues of our time. In the intervening months, many things have transpired: in addition to the important features in Tableau version 9.x, the online community has multiplied in size, about 500,000 people a day use Tableau Public, as of this writing, and the Tableau Foundation was established. Its mission is to use data to make a tangible difference in the world through the involvement of data volunteers and by granting software licenses to non-profit organizations that are dedicated to improving public health and the lives of underprivileged populations around the world.

Tableau Public is only as good as the people using it, and as we progressed on our own journeys with Tableau Public, we became engrossed in the data stories and dialogue that people have created and curated, particularly those of the Tableau foundation volunteers and others that have the express purpose of using data for good. We have attempted to provide guidelines for you on how to craft a compelling, rich story with data that enlightens others. Our examples focus on variations of the World Bank indicators, and by the end of this book, we have crafted an example dashboard that focuses on an issue that impacts everyone.