Word cloud, also known as a Tag cloud or text cloud, is a visualization of word frequency in a given text as a weighted list, typically used to depict keyword metadata (tags) in free form text. Tags are usually single words, and the importance of each tag is shown with font size and color. A popular technique when visualizing topical content of speeches and articles.
(One of the simplest forms of text analysis you can perform in Tableau.)
Examples of word clouds
Figure 1.0
Figure 2.0
In above two examples, you can tell at a glance that the tags success, vision, determination, achieve and work are some of the most frequent words in the first figure, while the tags game, learning, gamer, games, knowledge, game-based are the most frequent tags in the second figure.
While word clouds are a powerful way to visualize your qualitative data, its good to note that;
Word clouds emphasizes on frequency of words and not necessarily their importance.
Word clouds do not provide context, so the meaning of individual words may be lost.
So, how do I create a word cloud in Tableau?
I will be using data on Complaints against public institutions, to walk you through how to create a simple word cloud in Tableau. My goal is to visualize the nature of complaints filed against public institutions in Kenya.
Once you’ve connected the above data set.
Drag dimension field ‘Nature of Complaint’ to the Text shelf.
Drag measure field ‘Number of Records’ to the Size shelf.
Change Marks card from Automatic to Text
Add color to differentiate every single tag by dragging dimension field ‘Nature of Complaint’ to the Color shelf.
See below;
And there we have it. From this word cloud, it is evident that some of notable complaints include; Delays/inefficiency, unresponsive conduct, unfair treatment among others.
Related dashboard: Complaints filed against public or private institutions and officers.
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