Antichaos
Data Visualisation, Tableau & Data Services
A while back I introduced a little Tableau extension I built called CountTo – a number that animates up (and down) to your KPI instead of just sitting there. It started as a client request for a sustainability dashboard, turned into a fun JavaScript challenge, and ended up being one of the more popular things I’ve put out for free.
I have revamped it – new name, same idea, a lot more polish. It is now called Tally.
[Read more…] about The Tally extension: CountTo renewedAfter year in Tableau Desktop, I sometimes forget the minor features that make the program so powerful. They’re the small moves: searching data fields, creating calculations on the fly, editing pills – that you do dozens of times a day without thinking.
Half of these tips I only realized were worth writing down because someone stopped me mid-explanation while I was teaching and asked “Wait. How did you just do that?”
After the first round went down well, here are five more, this time all centered on fields, calculations, and pills.
Missed the first batch? Start with the first five Tableau Desktop tips.
[Read more…] about 5 more Tableau Desktop Tips: Fields, Calculations & PillsOn Saturday, April 18th, MeasureCamp Amsterdam took over House of Watt once again. No pre-defined agenda, no keynotes. Just a group of people who care about data, and a blank schedule board waiting to be filled. And that blank board is the center of one of the most powerful analytics events which I really love.
With Tableau Conference 2026 in just a few weeks, a special event was organized by Tableau at Tableau (Salesforce HQ Amsterdam): Datafam Day.
Not to be confused by Datafam Europe (from last december), Datafam Day was an evening with very interesting sessions from Visionaries and Ambassadors about the latest and greatest developments from Tableau (earlier that week also in London).
[Read more…] about Datafam Day 2026 – AmsterdamTableau dashboards often contain functional, but visually not really exciting navigation. Until recently, creating a modern menu meant floating objects, images, and/or tricky workarounds.
With the new rounded corners feature in Tableau 2026.1, you can now build cleaner, intuitive navigation bars that highlight the active item while keeping the others flat, just like the pill-style menus common on the web. In this post, I’ll show you how to set it up step by step and avoid the common pitfalls along the way.
Instead of the classic, rigid button layouts, you can now create modern navigation bars that feel much closer to what users expect from contemporary web and app design.
It’s a subtle change, but it makes dashboards feel more polished, more intentional, and ultimately more user-friendly.
[Read more…] about How to create pill-style navigation in TableauI’m incredibly excited to share that I’ve been selected as a 2026 Tableau Visionary.
While the title is a huge personal milestone, the real momentum doesn’t come from the individual recognition – it’s the company I’m keeping. There is something incredibly humbling about being placed in the same league as this cohort.
[Read more…] about Tableau Visionary 2026With Tableau 2026.1, a major new feature has arrived. You can now bring fresh, live data from web services directly into your dashboards – no scripts, no intermediate databases, and no manual imports required.
Whether you want to monitor the latest sales from your CRM, track website visits in near real-time, or display the current weather for operational planning, the REST API Connector makes it simple to integrate external data into Tableau Server or Tableau Cloud.
This feature is particularly useful for analysts who need near‑real‑time operational data (CRM updates, event logs, weather, IoT signals) without traditional ETL workflows.
[Read more…] about Tableau REST API Connector: Add Live Web Data to Your DashboardsVersion 2026.1 of Tableau is released with – among other features and improvements – Rounded Corners! A long awaited feature by many, with some doubts on the necessity by others…
According to the New Features list:
[Read more…] about Rounded Corner Maps in TableauSet a corner radius for dashboard objects directly in Tableau Desktop and Web Authoring. Say goodbye to jumping through hoops with annotations or images. Just set the radius value to create a simple rounded corner or a more extreme corner radius to create different shapes.
In previous posts, I explored when to use radar charts and how to build them flexible and modular in Tableau. But as we’ve seen, this format has a notorious ‘blind spot.’ While it works well for showing a recognizable shape, the granular details often get drowned out in the overall picture.
Now we are taking the next step: improving the legibility of the radar chart by zooming in on individual spoke values without losing the context of the whole.
[Read more…] about Improving Radar Charts: Showing Overview and DetailsIn an earlier post, Radar Charts: Practical tips for when and how to use them, I explored when radar charts work well, when they don’t, and the common pitfalls that make them misleading or hard to read. This article builds on that foundation.
Instead of revisiting the theory, I’ll focus on how to construct a radar chart in Tableau in a different way than usual. The new way is is more modular, provides more options, and might be easier.
[Read more…] about Create a Radarchart in Tableau – Modular and SimpleRadar charts (also known as spider charts, web charts, or even Kiviat diagrams) are among the most recognizable – and controversial – chart types in data visualization.
They promise a compact way to compare multiple metrics at once, which is why they often show up in dashboards, even when they create more confusion than clarity.
This article explains
The goal is not to ban radar charts, but to use them deliberately and with clear awareness of their trade-offs.
[Read more…] about Radar Charts: Practical tips for when and how to use themTooltips can make or break a Tableau dashboard. Used well, they uncover extra detail with a simple hover, keeping your visuals clean but insightful.
But used poorly, they confuse users, slow performance, and hide the very insights you’re trying to show.
Too many tooltips turn a dashboard into a reactive experience instead of an intuitive one, users spend time chasing popups instead of insights.
In this article, I’ll show how to use tooltips smartly: when to reveal detail, when to stay silent, and how these small choices can make your dashboards clearer, faster, and far more actionable.
[Read more…] about Smarter dashboard design – with fewer tooltipsEvery year, the Dutch Radio 2 Top 2000 offers an updated dataset with 2000 songs – and every year, it challenges me to create a completely perspective on it.
The challenge to me isn’t what the data is, but how to see it again with fresh eyes. After 14 years of exploring bar charts, Bézier-inspired snow globes, and long-form dashboards, this year I opted for a 3D grid.
This post looks behind the scenes of that process: the design choices, technical constraints, and small visual tricks that shaped this year’s visualization. For the TL;DR people: the interactive dashboard can be found here.
[Read more…] about Top 2000 in Perspective – Behind the Scenes (2025)Every time you publish a chart that doesn’t start at zero, someone will appear in the comments accusing you of misleading your audience. But the truth is simple: not every dataset lives anywhere near zero.
When working with high-value metrics – like atmospheric pressure, energy usage, or financial KPIs – starting a chart at zero often flattens the trend and hides important variation. Simply removing zero can help, but it can also exaggerate small fluctuations, making lines appear more dramatic than they really are. In this guide, I’ll show how to visualize high-baseline data in Tableau using dynamic axis adjustments, reference lines, and buffer zones to create accurate, readable, and visually balanced charts.
[Read more…] about How to Visualize High-Value Metrics in Tableau Without Starting at ZeroWhen you start tuning a Tableau dashboard or SQL query for performance, one thing jumps out quickly: COUNTD can slow things down.
The count-distinct is an extremely useful function which looks simple on the surface, but under the hood it forces the engine to do extra work that adds up fast. Understanding why this happens – and what alternatives you can use – makes a big difference in keeping your dashboards responsive.
[Read more…] about Why is COUNTD so slow – and how can I fix this?