Tableau Basics: Use the Detail Mark to Shade Colors in Tableau
When you build in Tableau, there are many things that happen automatically for you. One example of this is when you add color to your charts. Usually, this color is based on the dimension you are splitting by or the measure you are aggregating. You drag the appropriate data field from the data pane to the color shelf on the marks card, and the chart you are building gets color based on that field.
In some cases, you may want to be a bit more detailed with your color. For example, take the regions and states of the United States. If you color your visualization by the region, you can’t differentiate the states, and if you color by the states, the colors on the chart become overwhelming and difficult to read, as shown. So, how do you overcome this obstacle?
Figure 1. Coloring by region doesn’t allow your users to differentiate states, but providing a different color for every state can be overwhelming.
Tableau provides a way to add shades to a visualization, allowing you to color by one field and then shade by another. Doing so is easy, but you need to know the steps. In this example, we will use the U.S. Sample-Superstore dataset that comes built into Tableau; however, this example can be easily transferred to other datasets as well:
The new map provides an ...
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