When I was applying for the data school I accidentally stumbled upon an intermediate technique to hide info, links and actions within custom icons. I used a little question mark in a bubble to hide guidance and information in my original viz, it helped to reduce the cognitive load whilst still indulging my want to fill the viz with unnecessary insight.
First of all you’ll want to get yourself an icon, preferably one that has a transparent background, and then save it into you “my shapes” folder in your Tableau repository.
Getting an icon
Oh! Don’t forget to credit the creator of those icons! The Noun Project is a fantastic database (thank you Caroline Beavon) and will remind you and show you how to properly credit the work you are utilising.
Tableau
Right, so now open up Tableau. We need a new sheet and we are going to create a calculated field to attach the icon to. Don’t worry, I’ll talk you through it.
If you want some inspiration, I’ve also used these as organisation icons with a hyperlink action that leads to the organisation website. Great way of getting the website in there without taking up unnecessary space.
Here are some vizzes where I’ve utilised this technique