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If you’re like me, you were probably inspired to revise some of your charts after reading Ann’s How to Visualize Age/Sex Patterns with Population Pyramids. Too often when I storyboard demographic information I default to separating out this demographic information (you know, for the sake of keeping things simple). Unfortunately, this is sometimes a missed opportunity to provide a more comprehensive picture. These things combined inspired me to recreate the Pyramid Chart in Tableau — Let’s get started!

The Data

The dataset we’ll be using is from the Arizona Office of Economic Opportunity, which you will see consists of age groups, sex (male/female), and population. If you receive disaggregated data, that wouldn’t be a problem — that’s Tableau’s specialty!

The Hack

We want to load our data source, review that our variables came in correctly, and add a new sheet. Next, we’ll drag two Population pills to Columns.

Now drag Age Group to Rows. You will want to click the arrow and uncheck Show Header.

To get our Age Groups in the middle, we need to hack Tableau a bit. Start by creating a Middle calculated field — all you’re doing is entering “0” and saving. Next, drag the Middle pill between your Populations. On the Marks Card, add Age Groups as a text item and change the type to text.

Okay, we’re making progress! Realizing our pyramid (or butterfly) is dabbing, we need to reverse the axis of our population on the left.

Note: You might need to sort Age Groups, as I did (see above where Under 5 years is after 85 years and over).

In order to highlight females on one side and males on the other, we need to create a couple calculated fields.

On the Marks Card, add Female as a text item to one population and Male to the other. Now we have the shape of something, but you probably noticed that the comparison is about as helpful as a table.

To change that, we’re going to get crafty with colors and create a calculated field for each. This will allow us to control the colors independent of one another while still maintaining the same x-axis (i.e. Population).

After creating your Female/Male Color calculated fields, you’ll want to drag them to their respective Color Marks Card. Next, edit the colors and be sure the “0” (i.e. the sex you don’t want to call out) is something very light.

Additional color tips: You’re better than basic — use something other than the default blue and orange Tableau gives you. You should also avoid using traditional blue and pink to represent male/female (this is 2018, after all!).

Our final steps will be cleaning up our visual. First, I want to get rid of unnecessary borders and lines across the entire sheet (they’re just a distraction). I would also hide my axes, as I have labels on my bars.

Speaking of the labels, I want to format (SUM)Female/(SUM)Male to be a nice round number and change my units to thousands (K). You should use your discretion when doing this but for the purpose of this chart, I know my readers aren’t actually distinguishing between 200,010 and 200,500.

Last but definitely not least, I want a descriptive title that pulls readers in. You’ll notice that I also leveraged colors in my title to differentiate between each side of the pyramid.

Bonus: You can go the extra mile and include some great information in your tooltips, too. Often, percentage of an entire population is a really important piece of information. The tooltip is a great way to provide that without adding distractions to the visualization.

First, identify the colors you want to use. I suggest Adobe Color, which will allow you to upload a photo and get HEX codes (along with complementary colors and other fun things). Of course, you might be lucky and already have your HEX codes available.

Next, you’ll need to determine whether you want to add a categorical, sequential, or diverging palette. I’ll show you categorical. You can add the others as needed using the same method.

With your HEX codes in hand, locate your Tableau Repository. Depending on where you installed this, it could take a minute. When you locate it, there will be a Preferences.tps you need to open in a text editing program.

Now, get started with code. You want to add the following before copying anything into the text edit.

You will need to copy the basic code down and insert your HEX codes. Tableau lists all the sets of you would possibly need here. Copy, paste, and customize.

Here is the tricky part…

Make sure you are using straight quotes. Anything else will cause all sorts of errors. I’ve included examples of a correct and incorrect repository. This is often not a matter of inserting quotes but changing the auto-correction in the program.

Save and close your text editor and open Tableau! To test your colors, open up a sample dataset. On a worksheet, drag a dimension onto the Color Mark. You’ll immediately see those basic default colors but don’t worry – we’re fixing that!

Select the Color Mark and click Edit Colors. You should see yours at the bottom!

Select your color and be sure to click Assign, otherwise nothing will change. Close the editor and check out your new colors!

SUCCESS!

If you followed along, you just completed some serious steps in customizing your Tableau visualizations. I call it a small but mighty change. You can go forth knowing that your visualizations are more customized and specific to your project!

By now, you may know tips and tricks to de-clutter and minimize the amount of ‘out-of-the-box’ stuff in your Excel charts, but I want to share how to tackle the same problem in Tableau. It doesn’t take long to spot a Tableau visualization. Is that a bad thing? It depends (does that give anyone else grad school flashbacks?). Instead of being recognized for the font (Tableau Book) and colors that Tableau pumps out, have your Tableau visualizations recognized for their utility and story.

I’m going to share how to customize your fonts and colors within Tableau. And, make your life a lot easier (i.e. not changing one component of the visualization at a time.). Repeat after me: “I am better than the defaults.”

Let’s start with fonts, the easier change of the two.

Instead of having to change your fonts as you go, you can change the entire workbook. If you enjoy clicking on every area of your chart and changing the fonts, go ahead… but, I bet you’d rather spend that time on something else. You will also miss one or two! This way the entire book is the same font. You can adjust sizing as needed!

First, open your workbook.

Go to Format in the top, right-hand corner and click Workbook.

On the right-hand side, you’ll have a formatting pane, which includes fonts, colors, and lines. Choose your font (I suggest a nice sans serif), and you’re ready to rumble!

My plan is to give you some background on the versions available, how to download it, and resources for getting started!

Which Version is Right for Me?

Options are great, but what’s the right choice?!?! Here is a simplified comparison.

Tableau Public

• Basic version of Tableau.
• Your visualizations must be stored in a global repository (the “catch”).
• You can still do awesome things like Viz of the Day or #MakeoverMonday.

This is the perfect option for those who want to become familiar with Tableau.

Cost: FREE

Tableau Desktop Licenses

If you don’t want to share your client’s data with others, I’d suggest forking out the dough for this one. However, make sure you’ll use it before you buy it. A year goes by quick, and you’ll be sorry you spent the money if it sits on your desktop unused.

You can choose a personal or professional license. Both include a full license. All your workbooks (i.e., all your stuff) is stored locally). The personal license has limited data sources (e.g., Excel and Google Sheets). The professional license allows you to access data directly from its source (e.g., Microsoft SQL Server). You can also share data via Tableau Online/Server.

Annual cost: $420 (personal) or $840 (professional)

Tableau Student

Enrolled in classes at least part-time? Score a year’s license to Tableau Professional for FREE. No gimmicks besides a sales call or two from Tableau. You can do this for as long as you are in school.

Cost: FREE

All that said, if you aren’t in school, try Tableau Public. Why? Trying it takes no commitment. Play for a while, determine if it is right for your project, and make a decision.

Download Tableau!

Even if you plan on committing to a full-license, get a free 14-day trial first. That’s 14 days to get your act together and start using it.

You might also check the system requirements. Making your computer sound like a rocket ship = not good.

I Downloaded Tableau, Now What?

Okay, now that you have Tableau, it’s time to do things! Don’t let this giant program just sit on your computer unused. Open that bad boy and start playing with data. My advice: Stay away from the sample datasets. They’re “perfect” for all intents and purposes and that’s not a good way to learn. Instead, connect to your own dataset. Remember: depending on your version of Tableau, you will be limited to certain file types.

First, start utilizing the vast Tableau community. You can literally Google your problem and likely come up with an answer. You can also visit the official Tableau Community forums to ask questions and learn from other confused people. I do this on the regular.

Second, commit to at least one #MakeoverMonday per month. Challenge yourself, along with many other Tableau users, to recreate a visualization. In one revision of a viz, I learned THREE new things.

Third, find your local Tableau User Group (TUG). You’ll be able to connect with other users and work through visualizations together.

Now… go forth and continue your path to becoming a Tableau beast!