Back in June 2013, I recreated Hans Rosling's famous Gapminder visualization from his TED talk. My Tableau visualization is posted here as well as Moritz Stefaner's Remixing Rosling, which I also recreated in Tableau here. Unfortunately, there are no "play" controls on Tableau Public, so I also posted a YouTube video demonstrating the play movement in the visualization here.
A few months later, Mec Analytics posted a comment on YouTube asking, "If I want to split the bubble into smaller bubbles representing nations, how can I do that?" What this person is asking refers to a point in Hans Rosling's presentation, here, where he bursts the bubbles into Countries.
I was reminded of this again last semester when a student in the data visualization class at the University of Cincinnati asked me a similar question. The team ended up using another visualization altogether, so I put the question aside. Circling back to this idea, I will outline my approach below on how to do this. For this demonstration, I will use the "World Bank Indicators" data that is available in Tableau, using a bubble chart with [Region] and bursting that into [Country].
My first thought was to use "Dashboard Actions", but those actions are limited to: Filter, Highlight, and URL. None of these actions will change a selected dimension from [Region] to [Country], so I utilized a parameter control to handle the bursting.
Instructions to build the visualization
(click the Download button above to download the Tableau workbook)
Step 1: Build a bubble chart
Open Tableau and select the "World Bank Indicators" data
Move Health exp/cap (curr $) to Columns
Move Life exp female (years) to Rows
Move Region to Color
Change Marks to Circles
Move Population (count) to Size and change Measure to SUM
Add Date (year) to Filters and select 2010
Add Region to Filters and remove Other
Right-Click on X-Axis and Click Edit
Change Axis to Fixed with Start 10 and End 10,000
Check Logarithmic under Scale
Click Tick Marks Tab and Select Fixed and Powers of 10
Click OK
Right-Click X-Axis and click Format
Change Numbers format in Scale to Currency (Custom) with zero decimal places
Right-Click Y-Axis and click Edit Axis
Change Axis to Fixed with Start 40 and End 100
Click Tick Marks Tab and Select Fixed and Every 10
Change the colors of the Regions as desired
Adjust Size of bubbles as desired
You should now have a bubble chart of the Regions. Now we will add our bubble bursting functionality.
Step 2: Create Some Calculated Fields and a Parameter
Calculated Field Name: Burst - Africa
Formula: IF LEFT([Region-Country],6) = "Africa" THEN [Region-Country] ELSE [Region] END
Calculated Field Name: Burst - Asia
Formula: IF LEFT([Region-Country],4) = "Asia" THEN [Region-Country] ELSE [Region] END
Calculated Field Name: Burst - Europe
Formula: IF LEFT([Region-Country],6) = "Europe" THEN [Region-Country] ELSE [Region] END
Calculated Field Name: Burst - Middle East
Formula: IF LEFT([Region-Country],11) = "Middle East" THEN [Region-Country] ELSE [Region] END
Calculated Field Name: Burst - Oceania
Formula: IF LEFT([Region-Country],7) = "Oceania" THEN [Region-Country] ELSE [Region] END
Calculated Field Name: Burst - The Americas
Formula: IF LEFT([Region-Country],12) = "The Americas" THEN [Region-Country] ELSE [Region] END
New Parameter Name: Burst Bubble
Select Data Type of String
Add from Field Region
Manually add the values of NONE and ALL (Slide NONE to the top of the list)
Click OK
Right-Click on Burst Bubble parameter and select Show Parameter Control
Calculated Field Name: Burst Dimension
Formula: IF [Burst Bubble] = 'NONE' THEN [Region] ELSEIF [Burst Bubble] = 'Africa' THEN [Burst - Africa] ELSEIF [Burst Bubble] = 'Asia' THEN [Burst - Asia] ELSEIF [Burst Bubble] = 'Europe' THEN [Burst - Europe] ELSEIF [Burst Bubble] = 'Middle East' THEN [Burst - Middle East] ELSEIF [Burst Bubble] = 'Oceania' THEN [Burst - Oceania] ELSEIF [Burst Bubble] = 'The Americas' THEN [Burst - The Americas] ELSEIF [Burst Bubble] = 'ALL' THEN [Region-Country] END
Step 3: Build bubble bursting functionality
Move Burst Dimension to Details
Click Edit Sizes for the Circle Sizes
Check boxes for Start value in legend and End value in Legend
Click OK
You should now have a working parameter control which will burst the bubbles. You can select NONE for the original bubble chart by Region. Select an individual Region and it will burst only that Region. Select ALL and it will burst all of the Regions at once.
This is a relatively easy solutions, using only a few calculated fields and a single parameter control.
I hope you find this helpful. If you have any questions feel free to email me at Jeff@DataPlusScience.com
