Tableau for Data Visualization and Harry Potter Worldwide

Tableau is a powerful tool for creating data visualizations and having fun with your data.  Tableau Public is free to users, and a great way to learn about data visualization and telling stories with your data.  Keep in mind though, everything you publish in Tableau will be shared with the community of other Tableau users.  That said, you can check out what others are doing with Tableau and get ideas for visualizations because you are part of a sharing community.

Tableau is particularly strong when it comes to creating maps.  Let's look at a simple example using the Box Office earned by the Harry Potter Movies in various countries throughout the world.  I start with a data sheet (in Excel) that looks like this:

Movie Title	Release Date	Country	Box Office $
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone	11/16/2001	U.S.	$317,575,550
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone	11/16/2001	Japan	$152,993,493
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone	11/16/2001	Germany	$67,802,864

Now imagine that these data go on for about 200 rows, with data for all the Harry Potter movies in about 27 countries.  I can import these data into Tableau and create a data visualization with allows users to use a dynamic world map to quickly see how the Harry Potter movies peformed in individual countries.  The visualization also allows for users to analyze the performance for individual Harry Potter movies worldwide.  Tableau does a fantastic job of converting information like a country name or a zip code into a data element that fits into a map.

Below is a snapshot of the Harry Potter visualization, but you are much better served following the link below and actually using the full dynamic features of Tableau.

Link for Harry Potter Worldwide Box Office Data Visualization

Tableau Public provides a series of training videos that demonstrate how to get started developing Data Visualizations, so visit the following link to begin your data journey:

Tableau Public