An exemplary method of displaying a data visualization includes displaying a graphical user interface that includes three distinct regions, and receiving user actions to associate three different fields with three different shelves, including a shelf that defines colors of data marks. The method also includes generating, in accordance with the received user actions, data marks to be displayed in a data visualization, each data mark corresponding to a respective retrieved tuple of data from a multidimensional database, where (i) each data mark has an x-position defined according to data for a first field in the respective tuple, (ii) each data mark has a y-position defined according to data for a second field in the respective tuple, and (iii) each data mark has a color assigned according to data for a third field in the respective tuple. The method also includes displaying a data visualization that includes the generated data marks.