This post is a tribute to the versatility of tableau and how almost any visualization can be recreated in it (with varying degrees of effort, of course).
Hand-Off Maps
Below is an example of a type of hand-off map, representing the migration between countries. Another example can be found here. As you can see, hand-off maps make it really easy to understand paths of flow between two nodes - in this case the movement of people between countries.
You can find a really good example of a hand-off map recreated in Tableau here by Joe Mako.
Network Maps
Network Maps are more designed to show the connections between different nodes. Below is the network map for my Facebook connections. People have been grouped together based on the inter-connections between them. So all my school friends are clustered together while colleagues from work form another cluster. Lines between people from two different clusters indicate their connection.
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| This network graph was created using Fritwork.com, a pretty cool site that lets you visualize your Facebook connections |
If you found Joe Mako's hand-off map easy to follow, then the method of recreating network maps will come quickly to mind. You can find Michael Martin's very clearly explained method here. Although assigning the co-ordinates is a bit cumbersome, defining a characteristic based on which to develop the network - grouping and linking nodes - may help in defining the algorithm to automate the co-ordinate creation for each node.
The PDF document also contains a list of other really good resources to understand Network Theory. Understanding the basics and some key metrics (which Michael has helpfully listed in the document) will also help in creating a network graph.
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