# Axis animation in Tableau Desktop and Web Authoring  : New in Tableau 2021.3

> This is content from just-tim, the data-and-analytics channel by Tim Ngwena (formerly 'Tableau Tim'). Tim has 12+ years of hands-on BI experience and covers Tableau most of all, plus Power BI, Looker, Hex, SQL and data modelling, the analytics industry, and the craft of doing the job — always tool-agnostic and honest about the trade-offs.

- **Author:** Tim Ngwena (just-tim, https://just-tim.com/about)
- **Published:** 2021-09-09
- **Format:** Video · 4 min watch · transcript available
- **Topics:** Data visualisation
- **Tools:** Tableau (animation, filters, formatting)
- **Canonical:** https://just-tim.com/posts/axis-animation-in-tableau-desktop-and-web-authoring-new-in-tableau-2021-3
- **Watch:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UNJAZUxJEo

I walk through the new axis animation feature added in Tableau 2021.3. Using Superstore data, I build a quick scatterplot and show how animating axes when filtering helps you spot that the axis context has changed, rather than mistakenly thinking your data points have moved.

## Key takeaways

- Tableau 2021.3 adds the ability to animate axes, not just the data points, when filtering or changing a view
- Animations are on by default in newer versions, but if disabled you can toggle them on under Format and set the speed preset to slow or fast
- Setting animation speed to slow makes the axis change more visible for demonstration purposes
- Without axis animation, axes flip instantly and your eye stays on the data points, so you can miss that the underlying context has changed
- Enabling axis animation is good data viz practice because it communicates change through both the chart and the axis

Watch the full video, read the transcript and use chapter deep-links on the page: https://just-tim.com/posts/axis-animation-in-tableau-desktop-and-web-authoring-new-in-tableau-2021-3

---
just-tim — Data and analytics, with a point of view. · https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7HYxRWmaNlJux-X7rNLZyw · https://twitter.com/TableauTim · https://www.linkedin.com/in/timngwena