Innovative Tableau

Chapter 43. 3 Ways to Make Gorgeous Gauges: Tip 3

How to Make a Stock Ticker Gauge

The next gauge I show you how to build in Tableau was inspired by the stock tickers seen on major news networks and stock portfolio apps. The visualization typically features the positive or negative change of a stock or index, preceded by an up or down colored triangle, and are occasionally enclosed by a colored rectangle to reinforce the change.

Although stock tickers aren’t the best choice for visualizing the magnitude of a change, I like them because they clearly indicate a positive or negative performance, they have a minimalist design, and they are encoded by both color and shape; an approach to double-encoding that is colorblind friendly. If you’re looking to try a slightly different approach, the stock ticker gauge is a good alternative to the performance indicator titles with comparison scores that are outlined in Chapter 39. This chapter shows you how to use Gantt charts in a unique way and employ the up (▲) and down (▼) alt code characters to create a stock ticker in Tableau.

How to Use Gantt Marks and Alt Code Characters to Create Gauges

By the end of this chapter, you will be able to make a stock ticker gauge with an up or down triangle and rectangular indicator that changes color based on performance:

This gauge requires four elements:

• A calculated field that computes ...