Written Tutorials

  • Dashboards aren’t dead. They’re just explanatory.

    The problem isn’t that companies don’t have enough data. There’s never been a time in history when businesses have had more data, and data continues to grow exponentially. The problem is most companies can’t harness data into a clear picture that aligns stakeholders, creates a shared understanding, and directly leads to positive outcomes. That’s why…

  • 3 Ways to Navigate AI’s Push vs. Pull Trade-Off

    Here’s what nobody is talking about… The maligned AI catchphrase that is a telltale sign that AI slop is forthcoming. But seriously, I wrote this, and here’s what nobody is talking about: AI integrations are mostly a type of pull, requiring the user to initiate an interaction, instead of push, proactively delivering value on the…

  • 3 Reasons the Analytics Maturity Framework Is Broken (and What’s Better!)

    During our Decision-Ready Data strategy workshops, one focus area is ensuring practitioners and stakeholders align on the type of analytics being delivered. We’ve shared before how you should know if decision makers are expecting data, analytics, or visual analytics, but within each of those, there is nuance that creates the difference between data that goes…

  • Visualizing Novel Use Cases with Claude Sonnet 4.6

    Like so many others, I have been intrigued by the capabilities of advancements in AI and its potential to make data visualization and analytics more efficient. My earliest experiences with AI were completely misaligned with my data visualization mission statement. Most notably, the critical improved accuracy of insight was nonexistent and I simply could not…

  • 3 Totals Hacks to Transform Your Tableau Bar Charts

    I’ve recently had a fantastic run of totals-based discoveries. I’ll admit – I’ve overlooked the humble Totals feature. At the Tableau Conference, a friend showed me how the space and marks created by adding totals can enable new spacing and labeling configurations. Not long after, I had the opportunity to apply the technique in a…

  • The Neuroscience Behind Bar, Line, & Pie Charts

    Whenever I’m designing a dashboard, I ask myself: could someone spot the insight before they start reading?  When we are shown data, in those first split seconds, our visual system is already scanning, filtering, and prioritizing what matters without our awareness. By the time you read the chart labels, legends, and footnotes, your brain has…

  • Data vs. Analytics vs. Visual Analytics: What’s the Difference?

    As tradition holds, Playfair Data shares our analytics trends and predictions going into each new year and recaps it by sharing the Playfair+ tutorials the community found most useful. As expected, last year saw the rise of everything AI, including not only using data to train AI models but AI applications created specifically for data…

  • Year in Review / Top Playfair+ Tutorials of 2025

    What a year 2025 has been! With 29 new written tutorials, 18 new video tutorials, and many public and private training events held throughout the year, the Playfair Data team further expanded into valuable topics such as Decision Science, Tableau innovations, Oracle Analytics Cloud, Power BI, Figma, and Design principles for data analytics. As tradition…

  • How Nielsen’s Usability Heuristics Apply to Visual Analytics

    Understanding human perception, cognition, and psychology is indispensable when it comes to creating successful visual analytics tools. A psychological element we often unknowingly use, called a heuristic, is a rule-of-thumb or mental shortcut that we can use to make a decision or solve a problem. Humans have heuristics for many things, but they can be…

  • Tableau vs. Power BI vs. Oracle Analytics Cloud: 2026 Comparison Guide

    Okay, I get it. Searching for “Tableau vs. Power BI” leads to over 25 million results in Google, and that is if you can even get past the ‘no-click’ AI response. The Tableau versus Power BI debate has been covered ad nauseam, so you may be wondering why I’m choosing to provide my own take…