Michael Hellen > Tableau Broadcast


Background

Tableau is a data visualization platform that allows authors to create rich, interactive dashboards so that viewers can consume the data in a visual format.

Problem statement

Previously only licensed users had permission to view data visualizations within the customer’s Tableau environment. This works well to control which individuals have access to content but there are some cases when a customer needs to share more broadly. For example, the State of California wanted to share Covid-19 data with the public. With Broadcast, customers can now export a public version of a data visualization from their Tableau environment and embed it onto their own website.

Design considerations

  • The full user journey starts when the customer has data to make available to the public, and not when the admin clicks a button to broadcast.

  • Broadcasting should be deliberate and intentional. To prevent the possibility of sharing private data broadcasting shouldn’t be allowed to happen accidentally.

  • Only admins of customers who have purchased Broadcast will have access to the feature. The target user is a small subset of all our users.

Early explorations

I explored many options but first we had to answer some important questions.

Is Broadcast part of share?

Our initial approach was to include Broadcast in the share dialog but soon realized that it might be better served as two separate features. I created a few options to discuss and recommended that it should be its own feature.

Here are a few points I used to support my case:

  • Broadcasting isn’t necessarily a share feature. It is done by activating broadcast, which exports a version to the Tableau Public service.

  • Sharing will still exist for internal use and shouldn’t be confused with the broadcast option.

  • The audience for the feature is limited to only admins of customers who have purchased this feature.

  • Broadcast is also limited to views within a workbook, which further limits its availability.

  • Broadcast is a premium feature and shouldn’t be grouped with share, which is commonly a free service.

Where should the admin access the broadcast feature?

After coming to agreement that broadcast is its own feature, we then looked to reduce confusion about how to activate Broadcast. We decided to only allow the admin to broadcast from an open workbook. Our reasoning was that Broadcast should have a certain amount of friction to reduce the risk of accidental broadcasts, and showing the opened workbook view will help ensure the correct one is selected.

Final design

Several rounds of reviews resulted in my final proposal, which included creating flows for the remaining use cases.

Conversion to Figma

The original wireframes were created in Sketch but our licenses were not renewed toward the end of the project. The final screens were recreated in Figma, which I believe is a more powerful tool.

Prototype

I also created an interactive prototype to help explain the activation flow and where to find the embed code.

Hifi mockup

I created mockups adhering to the Tableau design system to show visual style of elements that are more complex and may need more guidance for engineers to implement. In addition to the this mockup I met with engineers often to ensure feature was created as designed.