For any scholar wishing to venture into the cutting-edge realm of Digital Humanities, Tableau is a terrific

place to start for many reasons. The product is very versatile. It is user friendly, which allows even the
most novice operators to create an effective and beautiful presentation. It comes equipped with
numerous tools to manipulate data and create unique and customized visualizations. Tableau is a
resource not just for those in the digital humanities field, but essentially any field that requires research
and presentations.

I am documenting my first experience using Tableau through this platform. I followed along with Ashwin
Kumar’s youtube tutorial, A Beginner's Guide to Maps - YouTube, and Maeve Kane’s Tableau
walkthrough – 2016 Intro to Digital History (maevekane.net). After completing the variety of digital
projects within those tutorials, I should have enough knowledge of the program to create my own digital
project using a unique datasheet provided to me by my professor.

My first endeavor was to tackle the variety of different methods to manipulate data comprised within
Kumar’s tutorial. After I opened Tableau, I selected “Microsoft Excel” from the left-hand “Connect”
panel on the main page, located the dataset, and hit OK. That brought me to the preview page giving me
a visual of the dataset when uploaded to Tableau. Browsing the different columns and rows gave me
some ideas on what I could explore using the data. To go into “authoring mode,” I selected the new
sheet icon on the bottom-left tool bar and renamed it. It left me with a blank worksheet with my loaded
data:

The tutorial( A Beginner's Guide to Maps - YouTube ) I am following is Mac-based, so it is a little

different. As it is divided nicely in Mac, it is a lot less visible here. On the left-hand panel where the data
is located under “Tables,” the Dimensions value is on the top half while the Measures are indicated by a
thin divider in the same pane.
The icons to the left of the measures within the Tables pane give a lot of information on what data that
component can be used for. The “abc” (as seen next to Category and others) indicates text values, the #
indicates quantity values, the globe icon (as seen next to city, country, etc.) indicates geographical
information, and the calendar icon indicates date values. Never using Tableau before, I looked up these
and other icons to get started on their website here Visual Cues and Icons in Tableau Desktop - Tableau

The geographic data indicated by the globe icon can be dragged directly onto the middle portion of the
blank sheet. I dragged “Country” from the left Tables panel onto the view and a map of the United
States appeared with a point in the center. Because the data contains geographic data of country, state,
city, and postal code, I can create a hierarchy using these points to better analyze the data. Using ctrl-
click to highlight the various components, I right-clicked create hierarchy and hit OK in the window that
appeared. Country appears in the Marks box with a + to the left side; clicking that expands to the other
levels in the hierarchy.

After the map is set, I can explore different components of the dataset. I dragged “Profits” in the left
Measures section to the Label icon. It gives each state a numerical value showing how well “Superstore”
did in each state, which is either displayed as a positive or negative number.
To increase the map’s efficiency, drag Profit in the Marks section to the Color block. It will now show a
map with a color ramp indicating the profit margin from lowest to highest to better understand the
data. The section at the top right, SUM(Profit), is the legend that shows what each color represents.

The map now is much more user friendly! But the tutorial indicates an error; it registers no data for
Delaware. The issue is indicated by the notification in the bottom right of the map screen that reads “1
unknown.” You can zoom into the map manually by pressing the zoom in + icon that appears when your
cursor is in the map, or you can double click the state itself.
When you click the “1 unknown” button, it brings up the “Specials Values for [State]” dialogue box,
which indicates that one of the locations does not have a geographic location. Hit the “Edit Locations”
option at the top to correct the issue.

The dialogue box now shows data of each individual state, with the problem area at the top in red text.
In this particular case, Delaware is spelt incorrectly. Depending on the type and size of your project, you
may want to go back into the Excel spreadsheet and change things or contact the provider of the data to
correct the source. For this project, we can click the red text “Unrecognized” under the “Matching
Location” column, type out the correct spelling of Delaware, and press OK.
Immediately, Delaware is now recognized in the map and shows the correct color in correspondence
with the profit data. If you move your cursor over the state, it shows the number of profits. Ideally, this
would not happen and all the information in the Excel spreadsheet would be correct; however, to learn
this tool, it is helpful to understand where potential pitfalls may be and how to fix them.
To go back to the full map view easily, scroll your cursor over the map area and in the left sidebar that
appears, click the pushpin button.

The next data measure we will look at is the quantity of goods sold using a different Marks type than we
did for profits. In the fat left hand column, find “# Quantity” under the measures division line. Drag it
onto the Marks box to the “Size” icon.

In addition, for tutorial’s sake, we can increase the size of the quantity circles by clicking the “Size” icon
and dragging the cursor to the desired size. The color of the marks indicate the profit, while the size
shows the quantity of goods in relativity to each other. In addition, you can move your cursor to the
circle and find exact numbers. This function provides visually a wealth of information. For instance,
because New York and California have both high profits (indicated by dark blue) and large quantities
sold (indicated by the size of the mark), a company may want to put more funding into those states as
they are doing the most business. Texas, on the other hand, shows a large quantity being sold but not
too high of profits (indicated by the yellow). This could tell a company that they need to investigate
operations there and locate any issues to increase profit.
That tutorial was a great introduction to Tableau and how data can be used spatially! It was fairly easy
to follow; I think learning the individual tools for the first time made the process take longer, but it was
worth it!

To investigate a different topic or create a new project, save the current project, and go to the top left
corner where you see the Tableau logo and click it. It will bring you back to the start screen. Now click
Excel Spreadsheets, find the UFO Sighting Excel document, and click OK. It will load, like before, into the
data preview screen. This shows the basics of the data, such as summary, location, shape of the sight,
duration, etc. On the bottom corner of the screen (as indicated by the cursor in the screenshot) click the
new worksheet tab. You can change the sheet names (as we are working with different data sets) by
double clicking the sheet and renaming it, as you will see in upcoming screenshots.
After selecting the new sheet and renaming it, I will drag locations to the main center screen. Starting
with country, it gives me a point in Canada and a point in the United States. If I just want to focus on the
United States, I can click and drag my cursor over the mark for Canada and a window appears; then I
clicked “exclude.” That hides all the marks located in Canada in the dataset and centers the map on the
United States.

In the Marks tab to the left of the map, click the plus (+) icon next to country; this will reveal marks in
individual states. As UFO sightings appear in all fifty states, for tutorial’s sake I am going to exclude
sightings in Alaska and Hawaii and contain my study to the contiguous US area. I excluded the two states
the same way I excluded Canada to get this:
To add cities to the hierarchy in the Marks box I clicked the plus (+) icon to the left of State, just as I did
with Country. Because locations in Canada, Alaska and Hawaii from the dataset are hidden, it only shows
the cities within the contiguous U.S. It is important to stress that these are only hidden within the
Tableau document and not erased from the dataset/Excel spreadsheet. Alternatively, if you wanted to
study just Canada, you would do the opposite as I have done; Tableau works the data around your
particular focus area.

Like the Delaware issue explored in the previous map, the UFO sightings Excel document indicates in the
lower right corner that there “34 unknown” items in the datasheet. Clicking that button brings up the
“Special Values for [City]” dialogue box. Keep in mind: When you’re using Tableau with different
datasheets, it is important to check with each step the lower right corner, as it will indicate if there are
any unknown or incomplete items within you’re dataset. In the dialogue box, again I clicked the top
action “Edit Locations.” This results in a number of unrecognized sites in red text on the right column of
the box titled “Matching Location.”

Although Tableau is a great digital tool to analyze data with, it does have its limitations. The tutorial
instructs that the issues here are most likely that the datasheet exceeds the amount of data that is able
to be stored on the program within the personal computer. The limitations within the U.S. are around
1,000 people per city or town, which makes the data in this exercise a little imprecise. In this case, it is
not an issue with the Excel spreadsheet itself, like the previous tutorial, but rather that Tableau
computed how to get the most accurate map based on the imported datasheet. One could input
longitude and latitude information to fill the unrecognized locations if it was absolutely necessary to
view one of these areas for your research. Alternatively, if one of these cities or towns was the focus of
your research, you could perform the previous steps I used to hid the location data that didn’t concern
my study; in that case, these unrecognized areas likely would work fine. After deciding to ignore the
“unknown” locations, there is another problem to contend with. The points on the map are dense and
clustered, making it an inefficient visual of the data being presented. However, Tableau [We? I?] can
remedy this by using a different density mark type. In the Marks box, go to the dropdown menu and
select “Density.” The resulting map shows the data not as points but through a density heat map. The
darkened areas show a concentration of reported UFO sightings. For instance, you can see a
concentration in Southern California, which just happens to be where I grew up and currently live; isn’t
it so fascinating what you can explore and discover using digital technology and datasheets? This is only
one example; there are tons of things one can explore that suit individual interests and research!
Tableau also allows the user to personalize the project. Visual presentation is an important component
of any digital project; a more aesthetically pleasing presentation can affect its general reception as
well as how effective the data is displayed. In this case, I want to change the color from the default
light blue display to something bolder, as I feel like that is a more appropriate color ramp for my topic
and to present my data in the map.

To start, click the Color icon in the Marks box. A new box appears with drop down menus for Color,
Intensity, Opacity, and Effects. Clicking on the Color menu gives a variety of options. Considering only
those marked with “density” at the top, I ran through my options and selected “Density-Multi-Color
Dark.” Going back to the same box under the Color icon, I also increased the Intensity side to show the
denser areas more clearly on the map, as shown below:
While the instructions so far show how to manipulate specific components of the data uploaded into the
map, there are also things you can do to enhance the background to further sophisticate the project.
There are two primary justifications for why background visuals are important. One is that it provides
additional features for viewers to better comprehend the data presented on the map, such as if
someone were looking at it that had no familiarity with the contiguous United States. Another reason is
purely visual stimuli; digital humanities projects that are visually appealing can affect the way that the
user consumes the information being presented.

First, I will go to the top toolbar and select Map, then from the drop-down, Map Layers.
When selected, “Map Layers” appears in the far left column; it has functions to manipulate background,
map layers, and the data layer. In the Background tool at the top of the column, clicking on the style
drop-down menu reveals six functions Tableau provides to customize the background of the map. In this
case, I will only consider the top three (light/ normal/ dark), and ignore the others (Streets/ Outdoors/
Satellite), which are better suited for more specialized mapping projects. Tableau’s default map is set to
light. For your own future projects, playing around with tools provided by Tableau is extremely helpful
to understanding its function. In this project, I first changed the style under background to “Normal,”
which gave a better contrast; however, I liked the “Dark” setting much better (we are investigating UFO
sightings, after all!). The slide bar underneath the Style menu, titled “Washout,” can also be used to
manipulate visuals on the map, but for my purposes I thought it was best to leave it at 0%.
Within the Map Layers column I used to change the background, there are various boxes both checked
and unchecked in the middle section titled “Map Layers.” These can be played with to change what
components will be shown on the map. For my purposes, I did not change any of the default settings. A
massive benefit of Tableau is that you can play with the settings and components to create your desired
visual; as the presets were perfect for this particular map, other projects may need some adjustments.
The Data Layer below that lists a variety of demographic indicators provided by the U.S. census. These
offer a number of ways to explore different components of your data within the map, and by turning
them on or off can help you effectively display the data you want to present.

In the prior two examples, I utilized Excel spreadsheets; now I will attempt to use spatial files in Tableau.
Using the file downloaded from “A Beginner’s Guide to Maps” tutorial, I will use a spatial file to analyze
crime in San Francisco. This can provide information as to how crime is spread in a targeted area.
Returning to the main page again by clicking the top left Tableau logo, under the “Connect” column
select the “Spatial file” jump link. That will, again, bring you to a preview screen. This file is considered a
SHP file; Tableau takes the mapping information from the file and displays the data to make it more
accessible for the user to manipulate and show their findings more efficiently. The columns and rows are
a little different from the Excel spreadsheets used previously. The Globe icon in the far-right column
signifies the mapping location field. Going again to the bottom bar and selecting new worksheet
(indicated by the cursor on the screenshot below), I created a new sheet and renamed it Police Districts.
Because the geometry field is now the mapping location component (as opposed to previous examples
using Excel spreadsheets, in which created the map by using the “Country” field), drag it into the center
of the sheet to create the map.

By moving the cursor over the blue area of the map, different polygons of the map are more visible
(divided by black border lines). Currently, all the polygons in the map are fused together to create one
entity. To break them up, drag “District” under the left-hand Tables column onto the Marks box to the
Detail icon. Now if you scroll onto the map, the spaces are individualized, as displayed in the screenshot
below (highlighting the Park district of the map). The data shown in the map displays police districts in
the San Francisco Peninsula area.
From here, create a new sheet and title it appropriately. On the left-hand column, select Latitude and
Longitude (using the ctrl button on the keyboard to select multiple components), and drag them to the
center of the blank map space. Notice that they both have the globe icon to the left of them, indicating
that they can be used as the map base. The result is a single point on California. Double-clicking that
point zooms into the area of interest, as shown here:

Setting this sheet aside for the time being, I went to create a new sheet with the Excel datasheet
containing crime information in the same region. It resulted in this data preview view:
The displayed data is relative to the spatial data map of San Franscisco police districts. It contains data
concerning crimes in the individual districts; however, data from this Excel spreadsheet differs from the
SHP file. This datasheet contains no boundary information, as the spatial file had, but displays it as a
string.

To be honest, this is where the tutorial lost me. I tried playing around with everything for the better part
of an hour, and still it looked nothing like the map shown on the tutorial. It could be any number of
things, so for times sake I set it aside for the moment.
A large part of digital humanities is looking at data and asking questions of it; after all, applying digital
tools to academic disciplines have allowed scholars to discover things within data that were previously
hidden.
The last lesson in Kumar’s Tableau tutorial looks at Disneyland rides. He uses data to answer this
question: “Where are the most fun rides and the least fun rides?”

After uploading the Disneyland rides Excel spreadsheet, as with the other tutorials, preview BLAH
The preview screen shown after uploading the Disneyland Rides Excel spreadsheet shows these
columns: (abc) Attraction Name, (abc) Attraction Area, (abc) Description, (abc) Attraction Type, (abc)
Cohort, (#) Rating, (#) X, and (#) Y.

While data from the first four columns is fixed, the “Cohort” section contains different age groups while
the “Rating” section gives each individual rating of the fixed ride. At first glance as I continue with this
tutorial, I feel like it is an interesting and easy-to-understand example of how data talks to each other
within the Tableau program.

This tutorial shows how to make a customized map of Disneyland based on the rides that the sample
group deemed “most fun” and “less fun.” It is different from the other projects I have created with
Tableau so far in that it contains no real geographic data (indicated by the Globe icon). However, it is a
dynamic way to use the tools within the software to present a unique digital project.

After creating the new sheet containing the data and labeling it appropriately, the next step is to load a
personalized map. Go to Map on the top toolbar and select “Background Images” from the drop-down
menu; finally, locate the Disneyland file, which is “the dataset that you will apply the image to.” After
clicking that, a window opens, which looks like this:
From there, I clicked add image, then browse in the next pop up, and located the .JPG file of the
Disneyland map. After clicking image, a window opens that allows the user to browse their computer for
the .JPG file of the Disneyland map. Alternatively, however, I noticed that the program also allows you
to copy and paste a URL rather than opening a file, which I feel like will be a good function to remember
in upcoming digital projects that deal with customized maps and other visual data.
After importing the .JPG file, it appears in the center window. The X and Y spaces on the left of the
image are used to create the customized map, simulating coordinates on a grid. The tutorial stresses
that because the X and Y coordinates are included in the Excel spreadsheet, Tableau automatically
computes the data onto the map; however, the X and Y coordinates must be common throughout the
dataset for this to function properly. I feel like this is also a great thing to know when creating digital
projects using Tableau, as it stresses the importance of clean and accurate datasheets; considering this
example and the “Delaware” snafu in the first Excel sheet I used, I realize that it can save me a lot of
time and trauma in future projects if everything on the datasheet is correct.

The values of X and Y on the preview screen give values ranging around zero to ten. In the X Field box, I
ignored “Left” (as it is already at 0) and filled in “Right” with 10. The screenshot below shows the
changes I made to the X Field, but not the Y Field. This is only to show what I started with in the X Field
before I changed it, but I went ahead and repeated the same thing with the Y Field.

The window also gives a slidebar to “washout” the image, which is helpful to adjust bright colors of the
background image to allow the data to pop on the map. This is an important component to include to
increase the accessibility and understanding of data being presented. I then went to the other tab,
Options, next to the open Image tab, and clicked the box next to “Always Show Entire Image.”
After clicking okay, the original “Background Image” box appeared with all the data I just entered. I
viewed it to make sure everything was correct, then hit okay. To my absolute terror, nothing happened.
Everything was blank, and nothing (to my untrained eye) changed. But, if this tutorial has taught me
anything, it is to trust the process and believe that Tableau is not out to get you; rather, it is designed to
make it easy to convert any data into a map. That being said, if I didn’t panic immediately and hit pause
on the tutorial, I would have seen that he received the same result.

To make a customized map, the user has to let Tableau know so it doesn’t automatically load the
program’s built in map. The next instruction is to go back to Map on the top toolbar and select
“Background Maps” from the drop-down menu, and to the right click the “None” option.
Although the X and Y coordinates have the (#) symbol rather than the globe symbol items used in the
previous projects, they will be used to generate the map. However, rather than dragging the component
directly onto the map, as I had done previously, I manually dragged X and Y from the sidebar onto their
correct locations at the top of the screen: X in Columns and Y in Rows. It created this:

The above screenshot was NOT the result I should have had based on the tutorial. Thus, I started over.
But as I am just learning this new digital tool, it can be beneficial to mess up on a simple project; when
working on more complex projects in the future, I will already know what not to do and avoid a ton of
trauma and wasted time in the process.
Although this was a set-back, I am a very competitive person who needs answers. Plus, the tutorial
wasn’t over so I wanted to finish doing all the actions, background map or no. The next instruction was
to change the dropdown menu in the Marks box to “Circle”; this was to change the way the points
displayed on the map. After that, I pulled the “Attraction Name” from the left sidebar onto the “Detail”
icon on the Marks box. This step was interesting; all the points appeared on my blank space of a map
like I assumed they would, with an unexpected feature in the left bottom corner:

It is my really small background map! After further investigation, I realized that the X and Y coordinates
on the image from the YouTube tutorial went to 10, whereas mine went to 40. I went back into
“Background Images” under the Map button on the toolbar and changed the number under the X and Y
Fields to 40:
The result still was incorrect:

I scrolled over to the Y axis and saw that I could look at the data by clicking on an icon that looked like a
bunch of horizonal rows. I am unsure how the data from the spreadsheet transformed the X and Y
coordinates from what was displayed in the preview sheet to these numbers. But I did go down and
locate the highest coordinate number, which was 47.
I went back into the “Background Images” window again and adjusted the highest value to 50; this was
the result:

This is my proudest moment working with Tableau so far. Keep in mind that I am writing this blog post
as I work with the individual tutorials. Although these issues did not occur in the tutorial, I was able to
play with the components within the program and figure out a solution on my own. The experience
absolutely increases my confidence in using Tableau in the future.

Moving on with the tutorial, I eliminated the bulky X and Y axes to the bottom and left of the map by
right clicking the area and unselecting the checked “Show Header” option.
Now that the base map is done, I can explore how the data can help to answer his initial question of
how the rides are ranked using the individual age groups in “Cohorts” and their corresponding “Rating.”
To do this, I pulled “Rating” from the left onto the Color icon in the Marks box. This changed several of
the circle points on the map to various shades of blue; however, the color ramp is ineffective in
displaying the data. Just as I did with the UFO sighting project, I clicked on the Color icon to change the
color ramp into something more vibrant and visible. I used the “Gold-Purple Diverging” option, as
instructed by the tutorial.

Although the colors are better suited for the data presentation, the tutorial now indicates that, after
customizing the point colors, Tableau automatically summed up the individual ratings of the “Cohorts”
into one. However, the desired display is the average. I moved the cursor over the “SUM(Rating)”
component in the Marks box; an arrow appeared, and I clicked that to go down to “Measure (SUM)” and
changed the measure to average.

That fixed the Measures issue, but there is another problem: the tutorial points out that the number of
individuals in each “Cohort” group (gradeschool, teens, etc) is varied, which skews the data. The next
step is to drag the “Cohort” field from the left sidebar onto the “Filters” location above the Marks box.
This prompted the “Filter [Cohort]” window to open, and under the “General” tab I selected All,
checking all the previously unchecked components.
After clicking OK, I went to the “Cohort” drop-down menu in the Filters location we dragged it to and
selected “Show Filter.” This created another legend (above the color ramp legend) in the top right-hand
sidebar. All the age groups appear as selected. However, to view each individual group, I went to that
top right “Cohort” space and, from the drop-down menu, selected “Single Value List.” This changed the
previous format from checked boxes to individual selections.

As you can see, this genuinely messed up the entirety of the map. As I am a Tableau novice, I have very
little input on what happened. But seeing the location of the new dots comparing it with the previously
super small background map issue I had earlier, I am thinking maybe the datasheet or PC version of
Tableau (as the tutorial works with a Mac interface). Regardless, It terrified me and I was very proud of
the work I did earlier so I switched it back.
After working on the variety of projects from the A Beginner's Guide to Maps - YouTube, I moved onto
another tutorial with a different instructor. Maeve Kane’s Tableau Tableau walkthrough – 2016 Intro to
Digital History (maevekane.net) starts with a text file rather than Excel. Although she gave no
background to what the data is about, it is interesting regardless to play with the data. The preview
screen shows:
The tutorial recommends that I “begin by dragging two dimensions, two measures, or a dimension and a
measure into columns and rows.” In her tutorial, Maeve Kane asks “What’s the relationship between
race and trade?” She recommends starting off using one dimension and one measure.

Using her question to explore the connection, I dragged the two components from the left sidebar onto
the top where it says “Columns” and “Rows.” It makes a difference what component you drag where.
For instance, using Kane’s suggestion of race and trade, having “complexion” in the column section and
“trade” in the rows section creates this map:

Whereas the reverse entry using the same data components render this:
After selecting two dimensions, two measures, or a combination, and dragging them into either the
“Column” or “Row” section at the top of the program screen, look to the “Show Me” option at the right
top corner of the screen. It will give you an overview of what components you need to drag from the left
data column into the working project. Additionally, you can turn dimensions into measures and vice
versa to suit the needs of the project. In this case I am going to use the data to create a bar chart.

Using Kane’s model, to create a bar chart I need to click the arrow on the Trade component in rows to
open a drop-down menu.
By hovering over the measure or dimension option on the drop-down, select “count.” Kane states in her
tutorial “Selecting measure tells Tableau to count the number of each item in that column,
selecting dimension tells it to treat the information as a category, and selecting attribute tells Tableau
to treat that information as true/false.” The result is this:
My first reaction was how shockingly easy that was! But it is just the beginning; a lot more information
can be added to explore the question further by dragging either the dimension or measure to the Color
icon in the Marks box. Again, following Kane’s example, I will look to “see how many of each
race/complexion practiced each trade?” I dragged “Trade” onto the Colors icon and got this:

I like how the right side bar gives a legend for the different colors that represent trade. It is very colorful,
but hard to read the data. And as stated before, reader accessibility is important in creating digital
projects. The tutorial states that there are a couple of functions that I can use to display the data more
effectively. One way is adding another Dimension or Measure to the Columns or Rows. Tableau
automatically groups the data, so where the component is placed is important. I dragged “Trade” to the
Columns tab up top.
It still looks really clunky to me, but Kane provides some examples on how to fix this. She brings
attention to the data and that some of these groupings are misspelt or duplicated. But unlike the
“Delaware” incident in the first project, I’m not using Tableau spatially, so I can combine related items
into a singular category. She recommends trying to minimize the groups to under twenty. I will use
ctrl+click to group like items in the right sidebar. There are over sixty different trade groups, so likely I’ll
need to make some variations to the name when grouping things like “wool spinner,” “wool comber,”
“weaver,” etcetera.

This included some serious research on my end; in addition to words being clearly misspelt (such as
“bqker” rather than “baker), some of the trades listed are things I’ve never heard of. I referred to the
original datasheet to see what time period I was dealing with and discovered it was occupations
between 1760 and 1762. Using my own dataset in future projects I will understand this a little better
and not have to go back and see, but it was helpful. I found that “brazier” is an object to hold hot coals
or a cooking utensil, so I did not know what to do with that. I found that Bellis in “bellis maker” is a plant
genus, so I combined that with gardener. I looked up the trade category “Captain Van Veghten” and
found that he was a Dutch farmer, so I put him in farming.; etcetera. I did not get it down to under
twenty, but it was a good exercise. This was the result:

Sorting data can also improve the visibility of the data. I went to Tables on the right-hand panel and
clicked the down arrow, and from the menu selected “sort.”

A window opened, and I selected “Field” in the “Sort By” menu.

This is about the time I noticed in the tutorial that mine looked nothing like her example. I
troubleshooted and found that I needed to remove the extra “Trade” dimension out of the column box.
This is what I got, but I am not sure if its better for the representation of data.
Because the colors are really jumbled (some groups sharing colors, others being next to each other
having similar colors), instructions tell me to edit the colors in the Marks box by clicking on the color
icon to edit them. Realizing I had way too many categories still, I realized that I needed to combine more
groups. I did that, then went back to the screen. Still a lot, but I can work with it. Going to the “select
color palette” option, I selected “Tableau Classic 20.” After hitting apply, there are still duplicate colors
because I used only the singular color palette. I received a warning message but hit okay anyway.

I have thirty professions now, so I went into color palettes to look for dissimilar colors to add to random
professions I felt were too unique to group. I found that the color palette started back from the
beginning at the “farmer” location, so I started there. Because farmer feels like it should be green, I
located the green palette and checked the darkest one. I continued to integrate different colors until
each one was relatively unique, then hit apply.
The last on my list being “laborer” I predicted would be one of the leading professions for the time, so I
choose to make it super vibrant. Turns out, I was right! This is what my messing around in Tableau got
me:

Though it is easier to read with the colors adjusted, I’m going to drag “Trade” back into the columns
section up top to individualize the professions. After grouping, however, I noticed that there are now
two different “Trade” options in the left-hand sidebar: (abc)Trade and (paperclip icon)Trade(group). If I
were to drag the (abc)Trade back into columns, it won’t register the groupings I had painstakingly made,
so I made sure to drag the grouped one. A little underwhelming, but I am going to trust the process.
Hooray! At this point in the tutorial (Step 13) I get to finally change the names of the groupings I made.
This is another component in making charts and graphs to display data; things need to be readable and
accessible for your intended audience and beyond. The tutorial indicates two ways of doing this: “right
click the group and select edit alias, or right click the dimension in the left hand pane (make sure to
select the (group) version!) and select aliases.” Either option brings up a window The tutorial has
screenshots and instructs for Tableau on Mac, but I am working on PC. So if you’re like me (have very
minimal experience in using digital tools, operating on a PC but using a Mac-based tutorial, and a
really determined person) you’re going to play around with everything and figure it out. I minimized
the tutorial window and my Tableau window to see similarities.

After looking around on the tools in Tableau, obviously starting where the tutorial did which was by
right-clicking “Trade(group)” on the left panel, I selected “Edit Group” from the menu and a window
appeared with allowed me to rename some of the trade values.
It makes the professions a lot cleaner on the bottom by replacing the individual names within the group
under one single heading. There is also an option to exclude a trade or trade group. If this were my own
individual project and I had a unique historical question I wanted to answer using the data, I would have
much more input on this. I went back to the original datasheet and organized the “Trade” column by
profession, which was really interesting and made me think of other ways I could possibly manipulate
this dataset in Tableau. In this case, however, the only thing I really wanted to omit was “Null”; although
that area might be interesting to explore and compare with other studies of trades in Albany between
1760 and 1762, for the sake of learning that is the one I was going to hide. I right clicked on “Null” in the
right panel and selected “Exclude.”
That placed Trade(Group) into the Filters box located above the Marks Box. I was going to exclude “Null”
at the top of the bar chart display also using the same method, but I found it interesting that the people
in that category were either a brewer/distiller, clothier, or laborer.

Although the end result is still a little awkward, following this tutorial illuminated a multitude of ways
Tableau can be used to represent data in a variety of charts and graphs.

After following along with the tutorials, I am going to apply a different dataset (Excel spreadsheet)
provided to me by my professor concerning early colleges. Because each individual tutorial detailed in
this blog post instructed on a variety of Tableau elements, I wanted to review what individual icons
meant before deciding what question I wanted to explore based on the datasheet, which I found here
Visual Cues and Icons in Tableau Desktop - Tableau.

First, I reviewed the datasheet see what data is provided and to see what potential connections or
questions I wanted to explore. The information that I found most interesting is that: all the colleges
seem to be located on the east coast; there is sponsorship data showing what entities help to fund the
colleges; there are dates in which the colleges were established.
After going into the Authoring Mode and renaming the sheet, I have a blank canvas that I can explore
one or more of these connections.

First, I dragged “State” dimension from the left Tables panel onto the center of the blank slate; it placed
a marker in the middle of each state that has a college from 1663-1848, which are predictably all located
in the eastern United States. In the Marks box, I clicked the + next to State to show the city in which the
college was established. Moving the cursor over the marks lets me know what city and state the marker
represents:
Next, I dragged the quantitative measure # Established onto the Label icon in the Marks box. It
automatically read as “(SUM)Established,” and gave weird numbers not representative of what date the
college was established. By right clicking that component in the Marks box and selecting “Dimension,” I
was able to get a better representation of the year each college was erected. Double checking with the
original datasheet, everything looked correct.

Realizing that there were two unknown locations in the dataset, I clicked the “2 unknown” on the
bottom right side, which prompted a new window and showed me where the two problem areas are. I
tried to insert the correct longitude and latitude coordinates but was unable to correct the issue.
To add a little color onto the map and potentially enhance visualization, from the left Tables panel I
dragged “# Established” again to the Marks box, this time to the Color icon; now there were two values
for Established in the Marks box. Again, I right clicked it and changed it to dimensions. The result was a
lighter blue representing the older colleges and a darker representing newer. Wanting more of a vibrant
shift, I clicked the Color icon and then “edit colors.” I decided on a color ramp that had a beginning,
middle, and end, so I selected Temperate Diverging.
After hitting apply, I decided to play with the colors a little more. I went back into edit colors and clicked
the far left color representing 1636. It allowed me to change it to a darker color to add more contrast. I
did this with the other color on the right as well.

Unfortunately, that only created a custom color ramp which left the middle values a mix between the
two colors, so I switched it back. However, I am realizing more and more the customization value of this
tool and it is very gratifying even when making mistakes and having to backtrack. This was the result,
with a legend in the top far right:
Adding the Establishment dimension in both Label and Color in the Marks box creates a better
visualization of the data rather than relying on one or the other. Although the labels are incomplete in
some areas (likely due to its cluster) it gives an idea of when the college was established. Also, Tableau
allows the user to mouse over the individual components to see the exact date it was established.
Differentiating the colors made the data more visually stimulating. For instance, someone looking at this
digital project in its current state will see that the green points representing the earliest colleges in the
seventeenth century are located only along the coast, whereas the yellow points, representing the
subsequent years, show more colleges being established inland as people began moving out west. This is
likely a depiction of how colleges expanded with pioneering and Manifest Destiny endeavors of early
American life. Many of the darker orange colors, representing the latest colleges in the nineteenth
century, are much further inland; however, there are also some dotted along the eastern side of the
map. This may be because life was flourishing there, so establishing more colleges was a necessary
endeavor, both for educational purposes and monetary gain.

Going a step further, I dragged (abc) Sponsorship from the left-hand Tables panel onto the Color icon in
the Marks box. This allowed me to see what colleges were funded by what private entity. The colors
changed to correspond with the appropriate sponsor in the legend at the right.

Curious, I created another sheet using the same dataset to create a bar chart. I dragged Sponsorship to
the Columns section and College to the Rows section at the top. After changing the measure of College
to “Count,” this is the result:
This is representative of the influence that certain groups had within the early colleges. It is interesting
to consider how many colleges each group sponsored and why some sponsored more than others.

I hope you enjoyed joining me on my Tableau learning process! I have a much better understanding now
than I had when I started. Through my journey, I became increasingly aware of how powerful this tool is
for looking at data in new ways and how to better create and publish digital history projects. I fully
recommend the program as well as the tutorials I used in any field of study.