Is a spreadsheet a data viz? According to Ryan Sleeper, author of 3 Tableau books, "a spreadsheet or text table view of data is not a data visualization". Yet, Edward Tufte, a pioneer in the field of data viz, mentions in his book, Envisioning Information, "some tables are better than others". Perhaps, a text table can be a data viz when the text is not the main focus of the table in a spreadsheet.
In this post, I will provide 3 ways to make a table in a spreadsheet less "text-based", as seen in the picture above, therefore it can be considered a data viz. The image is a screenshot from Tableau that can be similarly created in the widely used Excel. The dataset used is "Sample Superstore".
1. Colour
Colours will help highlight differences and prominent items that you may wish to direct your audience to. Colours also convey information that has already been established as common understanding. For example, green for a rise in value and red for a drop. In Excel, rules can be set using "Conditional Formatting" to highlight values automatically within a cell/grid.
2. Symbol
Symbols also help your audience gain an understanding of your data viz quickly. An arrow up for a rise and an arrow down for a drop. There are also symbols like checkmarks and Harvey balls that help convey visual communication of qualitative information within a cell/grid.
3. Sparkline
Sparkline "presents the general shape of the variation (typically over time) in some measurement... in a simple and highly condensed way". Also, as noted by Tufte, sparklines "fit into a sentence or a spreadsheet cell". At a glance, sparklines can tell a lot of information within a cell/grid.
All in all, a text table within a spreadsheet may be made into a data viz using the above 3 ways. Nonetheless, with elements like symbols and sparklines, a text table may not be considered a "text" table anymore.