Data Representation and Information visualization with Tableau

Tableau is not easy to use. I started exploring Tableau by dragging different elements to column and row and see what graph it gives me. After trying different graphs for different data, Tableau became easier to use. It went especially well when I figured out how to use map with longitude and latitude. Since the data were involved with locations of dialing 911, map was an intuitive way to show data. One thing that was difficult for me is that the data itself contains a great number of unintuitive data. For example, codes for types of crime do not tell users what does it mean. Including codes of crimes cannot form a good data representation. One thing could have gone better is that I should have used a better data set.

Here is my Tableau URL: https://public.tableau.com/profile/meredith.yuhan.xie#!/vizhome/Book1_6897/Dashboard1

The problem I encountered was that Tableau turned out to be really difficult to use. I spent around thirty minutes on how to create dashboard and new sheet. I found spending that much time on exploring this software is a waste of time, because I could have used that time to create better data representation. One thing I would do differently is that I think I would learn more about how to use Tableau, by watching tutorial videos on YouTube, before class.

Wildcard Question: The problem I encountered was that there were too many different types of data. Each type of data also contains a large number of information as well. For example, there were more than 6,000 data of crime location. This problem made data representation on Tableau very difficult.

Answer: Tableau has a nice feature, and it is filter. By using filter, users can delete all the unnecessary informations. For example, I eventually only picked top 10 number of crime on my data representation, instead of thousands of them.

Different user group: Governors. Governors might have a lot of questions. For example, where should the police stations being built? How many of certain crime were reported through 911?

Governors decide where the police stations should be. This data representation shows where the 911 emergency calls were made. The areas with especially high density of calls deserve better supervision from the government and policemen. Also, the data representation shows which type of crime were reported frequently. Certain types of crimes have a large number of being reported. Governors can pay extra attention on these crimes.