#WOW2026 | 15 | Mekko charts and offset labels

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Introduction

Welcome to week 15 and week 3 of Community month! I’m so thrilled to be partnering with Tableau Visionary HOF’er, Linsday Betzendahl! 6 months ago or so, while chatting, she mentioned that she had been messing around with Marimekko charts and Kevin Flerlage’s offset label technique. I told her that it would make a great challenge for a future WOW challenge.

So here we are. We’re using some open data from Our World in Data. We’ve got some hints and resources to help you along the way. 

Click to open in Tableau Public

Requirements

  • For the data
    • Pivot the data to Disaster Type & Decadal Deaths
    • Group Mass Movements, wet & dry into Mass Movements
    • Group Floods and Glacial Lake outbursts in Floods
    • Label Extreme Temperatures into Extreme Temps
    • Be sure to add the recommended data attribution
  • For the Mekko tab
    • Create the Mekko chart where each column is the percent of total deaths for a decade. Disaster Type on color also shows the percent of total deaths for each disaster and decade
    • Create labels with the decade year and the average number of deaths that vary in length. Labels should connect to the Mekko via a thin line beneath and should be centered
    • Show Disaster Type label for the last Mekko column only
    • 1 sheet
    • HINT: the size mark and the alignment of the size mark are the key to a Mekko chart
  • For the Stacked Bar tab
    •  Create a horizontal 100% stacked bar chart where each column is the percent of total deaths for a decade.
      • HINT: This may or may not be a traditional stacked bar chart
    • Disaster Type on color
    • Decade year on rows and limit to the last 3 available decades
      • BONUS: Add a parameter to select the “anchor” decade. 3-decade lookback based on selected decade
    • Create labels that show disaster type and percent of total. Labels should connect to and be centered on each disaster segment
    • Only show labels and values where % of Total is greater than 4%

Helpful Resources

Dataset

Available from here.

Attribute

When you publish your solution on Tableau Public make sure to take the time and include a link to the original inspiration. Include the hashtag #WOW2026 in your description to make it searchable!

Share

After you finish your workout, share on Twitter and/or LinkedIn using the hashtag #WOW2026 #Tableau and tag @WorkoutWednsday, Lindsay, and Kevin

Solution

Interactive