As the world gets more globally connected, we see massive amounts of data generated at every turn. Companies large and small work with data to gain insight and make critical business decisions. For this data to be useful, however, it must be properly analyzed. Data analysis involves taking raw data and adding it to user-friendly data visualization dashboards.
What’s Data Visualization?
Data visualization is the process of representing data in the form of a graph, chart, or any other visual format. This makes it easy to understand the information depicted in the data. It is easier for a human brain to grasp the information that is depicted pictorially instead of lumps of data that is unstructured. Data visualization is one of the most important processes involved in data analysis.
Can you even make a guess on how much data is generated every second? A report by SiliconAngle says that there would be 20 billion smart devices connected to the Internet and the amount of data generated can be baffling. It is expected that 463 exabytes of data will be generated each day worldwide, by 2025. Some of the daily key stats in the same report state that 294 billion emails are sent, 5 billion searches are made, 500 million tweets are made daily.
Where is Data Visualization Used?
Clearly, data visualization is crucial for managing these massive amounts of data, so that a non-analyst can understand the data quickly. Data visualization powers decision making by answering some important questions like “what are the relationships and trends?”; the presence of outliers, comparison of different values over different periods, or what trends are depicted by the datasets.
Weather maps, real-time air-quality indices, annual income, and expense report spreadsheets, and Facebook page statistics are examples of data visualization. It is used in many other ways to help stakeholders make quick decisions.
This article will let you understand how important and rewarding it can be to make a career in this domain. If you look forward to making a career in data visualization, taking up the Tableau Desktop Specialist Certification exam can be a smart move. But before that, let us know what Tableau actually is.
The Ultimate Data Visualization Tool
There are many data visualization tools to choose from, whether you are a data scientist presenting findings to an audience or business intelligence (BI) user looking for a practical way to visualize large datasets. Tableau is one such tool. Created in 2003, the interactive data visualization software lets you create charts, graphs, maps, and graphics without using code. It can be installed as a desktop app for visual analytics or as a server solution for online and mobile reports. Tableau connects to almost any database to create compelling visualizations that can be shared with a simple click. It makes data analysis fast with its dashboards and worksheets, which has made it a popular choice in all industry sectors.
Tableau 10 runs 100 times faster than any other solutions and can be integrated with R programming for creating a flawless visual analytics surface, eventually making access to data much easier.
The key features of Tableau are:
Tableau’s mission is to help people see and understand their data, and they market their software as an extremely easy way to do so.
So easy to use because of its intuitive drag and drop capability.
Real-time reporting as the dashboards and reports can be generated within seconds.
Power of drawing multiple insights from different and massive data sets via smart dashboards.
Compatibility as it can work with different sources like MS Excel, SQL servers, and also cloud-based data repository.
Smart Dashboards allow combining deeper insights that can be shared online by simple commands.
Apart from data visualization, Tableau can be used for data mining, statistical computations, data cleaning, and graphs. After going through the key features, let us now go through the steps you need to follow to start learning Tableau.
Steps to Learn Tableau
Learn Tableau graphs and data visualizations online. This will let you understand how Tableau is applied in different scenarios.
Subscribe to the Tableau community and follow the users within your industry so that you can understand how Tableau is applied and get the feedback too.
Read the related books that contain tips and strategies you need to follow as a beginner.
Identify the required skillset and develop those skills. The skills you need to develop are :
Working knowledge of data.
Basic experience in data analysis.
Ability to filter, sort, and group data.
Thorough knowledge of mathematical and statistical concepts.
Experience with some popular tools like Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets.
Analytical and visualization skills.
Knowledge of programming to use advanced features like Tableau Developer and Tableau Dashboards.
The practice is the best way to learn any software.
To get started, you can download the desktop version and explore its features. For publishing interactive data visualizations online, you can use Tableau Public.
Find out free datasets to work within Tableau.
There are new contributed datasets, some are shared on community forums too. You can also search Kaggle for practicing on open data.
Creating a Tableau portfolio.
It is good to practice your data visualization skills and beginning a dashboard project.
For explaining your process, you can share a link to your dashboard or post it to the GitHub repository. When you get feedback and suggestions, you can make improvements accordingly.
You can get involved in the Tableau user group and meet local Tableau users to discuss your process, clarify your doubts, and also give suggestions.
Training and certification.
It is considered to be the most important step, as when you get trained with some industry experts, you come across the different aspects and use cases of implementation of Tableau.
Tableau Desktop Specialist Certification can be an exam for your level to prove your technical skills. You can augment your career by holding this certification as this title showcases your expertise and skills in Tableau. Moreover, certification is always considered as a stamp of approval and keeps you ahead of other professionals without certification.
For getting certified, you can go for self-study to prepare for the certification exam. Taking up an online training course can be a wise move, this makes your learning go easy and continuous, making all the stuff to be learned available right at your end.
Conclusion
Tableau is adopted widely across industries and applications, in almost every sector. This makes the demand for Tableau certified professionals shoot high. You can go for Tableau Desktop specialist certification which is one of the most sought after certifications in Tableau.
In addition to real-life experience, it is recommended that you prepare for the exam by taking up an online training course. Some accredited online training providers give you the flexibility of learning at your own pace. Also, they give you the choice in mode of learning too. Generally, there are instructor-led, online, and blended learning approaches, you can choose from. All the study material is ready and you don’t need to arrange it, and they train you according to your knowledge level.
Get yourself registered and open the door of opportunities to a bright career in Tableau!