Visualizing wifi hotspots in NYC

by Kristen Sosulski

Objective: In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to visualize the locations of the free Wi-Fi hotspots in the New York City.
Data: This data is available on NYC OpenData.
Visual Display: There are many ways we can visualize this data. The options below show this data encoded as either a Table, Bar Chart, or Point Map.

Table

For example, we simply show the the data in a table to see the total number of Wi-Fi providers and type of service grouped by free and limited free.

Bar Graphs

A bar graph can be used to display an aggregation of the number of Wi-Fi hotspots categorized by general locations (e.g. indoor, outdoor).

Point Map

A point map can clearly show each Wi-Fi location and group it by type using color. Learn how to create it below!

How to make a point map in Tableau?

1. Download my sample file at: http://bit.ly/nyc_wifi

2. Import file into Tableau

3. Click “Sheet 1” and observe the dimensions and measures on the left-hand side

4. Right click on Long and change its Geographic Role to Longitude. Drag Lat to rows and Long to columns (not Latitude or Longitude).

5. Select “filled map” from the selection menu from Worksheet > Show Cards > Marks

6. If only one point appears, select Analysis -> and deselect Aggregate Measures.

7. Filter by type by dragging Type to the filter card. “When the menu pops up, select Free, Limited Free, and Partner Site. Click OK.”

8. Create a group by Provider. Create subgroups for Harlem, LinkNYC, and Other. (right click on Provider > Create > Group. Check ‘Include ‘Other’’, then select Harlem and press Group, next select BETA LinkNYC and press Group, now select all three groups which have the paperclip symbol next to the names, and press OK.)

9. Drag the new group to color on the Marks card

10. Drag Location T to the “Pages card” to animate the display. You can start the animation by pressing the right arrow on the right side of your screen.

11. Customize your geospatial display. Go to Map > Map layers and/or create a dashboard and add additional content