Make Distributions More Clear with Bins

In my previous Tableau: A/B Testing Grades vs. Study Tutor article I illustrated how to compare the use of a tutor and its impact on grades.  In that article the grade values were whole numbers and lack precision.

In this article, I will illustrate a scenario where a distribution is not very clear due to precision of values within a dataset and how to setup bins to display the distribution more clearly.

I will begin with a dataset that contains grades using decimal precision.

As you can see, unlike my previous article where the grade values were whole numbers, this dataset contains decimal values.

I begin with a simple visualizing of the grade distribution.
However, you can see the precision supplied for grades presents an unnecessarily complex and wide distribution.
There is no value for such precision in my distribution so I will condense the distribution with the use of bins.

First, I will configure the Grade dimension to use bins of whole numbers.

I will configure the bins so each contains all values for each whole number and increases each bin by 1.

Also, I will configure my Number of Records measure in Rows to use a Table Calculation to display a percentage of the totals and add the percentage onto the Label.

As you can see, my distribution is much more condensed and intuitive. Instead of many columns spread out making the distribution unnecessarily wide and complex, now the four grade values utilize one column each.