Practical Tableau

Chapter 89. Tip #4: Keep It Simple

I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.

Mark Twain

I love this quote from Mark Twain because the author is putting a value on prioritizing content. It is said that Twain’s “complete” bibliography remains incomplete due to the volume of his writings, and the fact that they were often completed for obscure publishers—not to mention under a variety of pen names. However, even as one of the most prolific writers of all time, this quote implies that Twain believed the most effective storytelling was done by being clear and concise.

This same idea applies to data visualization: keep it simple. One of the most common mistakes I see in dashboard layout and design is attempting to create silver-bullet dashboards that provide every possible answer to the business question at hand—all in a single view. One of the things I find myself saying often is “just because it is possible in Tableau does not mean you should do it.” Tableau makes it easy to add filters, charts, and objects to a dashboard, but there is a point when too many options for the end user actually detracts from your visualization, making it harder for the story in the data to emerge.

A concept that’ I often consider is Occam’s razor, usually described as “the simplest answer is usually the correct one.” William of Ockham did not have data visualization in mind when he devised this principle in the early 13th century, but I believe the concept fits quite ...