Innovative Tableau

Chapter 46. How to Let Users Choose Between Chart Types

When I was a kid, I enjoyed reading Choose Your Own Adventure books. In the books, after every few pages, the reader is presented with choices on how they want to proceed. Each choice will point you to a different page number where a story unfolds based on your selection. I assume that most kids reading the books were like me and would cheat by going back and forth to experience all the different outcomes.

Data visualization can be similar in that looking at the same data in different ways often leads to new insights (or storylines, if you will). Further, some end users will have their own preferences for how they want to look at data. Has anyone ever had to convert a data visualization to a crosstab view?

We’ve covered several charts during this section, but now it’s time to let our users choose their own adventure! This chapter shows you how to empower your end users to choose which chart type to display, allowing them to toggle between multiple visualizations with the click of a button or selection from a drop-down menu.

How to Change Charts Using a Parameter Control

The trick to letting your end users choose the chart type they want displayed involves a layout container and—as is often the case with my Tableau tutorials—parameters. For the purposes of this tutorial, let’s once again re-create a tactic from my visualization, A Tale of 50 Cities.

In the visualization, the end user has the option to toggle between a highlight ...