❓ Not sure how to serve your best #IronViz dish?
There's always a component of video games in almost all topics and Team GNV is here with some tips and resources, because if you remember... we did have a challenge called "Cooking up the Spice of Data" 😉
🧑🍳 Why you should try Iron Viz
In true #IronViz fashion - the motto is Win or Learn, you don't lose! Even if you have been using Tableau for years or just getting started in the community, there's so much to learn from everyone in this exciting annual event that gathers the greatest minds of data visualization! You can also check out this page on past Iron Viz submissions - a word of caution though, once you start you can't stop! ;) If that's not enough, check out these interviews and resources that will give you a glimpse into the process of making your submission!
- Iron Viz | Behind the Build by Tableau
- Secrets of the Iron Viz or check out the full playlist for more
- Conquering Iron Viz by Will Sutton
- Chris Westlake's daily tip and free consulting session
- Unfinished Vizness Epi 3 and also reach out to Kimly, Heather or Steve
😱 How do I get started?
If you haven't, create your Tableau Public profile and start creating! The full details for #IronViz can be found on the official page, but here's a quick snippet on how to plan for it.
That roughly means:
- Week 1: 20 Oct - 26 Oct
- Week 2: 27 Oct - 2 Nov
- Week 3: 3 Nov - 9 Nov
- Week 4: 10 Nov to 16 Nov
- Bonus days: 17 to 21 Nov
📊📊 What about the data?
Don't have data? fret not and check out the 💾 #GamesNightViz Data Archives 💾 or the following food-related datasets from our previous "Cooking with the Spice of Data" challenge:
Datasets
- Candy Land Places & Routes (From The Changing Geography of Candy Land by Dennis Kao)
- Mario Power Ups (Source: mariowiki.com)
- 2022 Beer Mile World Classic (Source: beermile.com)
- Dish Recipes from Breath of the Wild (Source: orcz.com)
- Pac-Man Game Info (Source: VGChartz)
- Pac-Man Speedruns (Source: speedrun.com)
- Stardew Valley Crops Information (Source: Kaggle)
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons Recipe (Source: Kaggle)
- Cat Food Stats for 'Adorable Home' (Source: Kaggle)
- Valheim Food Dataset (Source: Kaggle)
- Dave the Diver Recipes (Source: Fandom)
- Harry Potter Potion Recipes (Source: Kaggle)
- World of Warcraft Cooking Profession (Source: Wowpedia)
💡💡 Parting wisdom from the team
From Will
Design
Divide your viz up into sections or chapters. This makes it much easier for the judges to understand and assess the points you trying to make. Use layout, spacing or visual breaks to mark transitions between chapters (e.g., horizontal bands, slide-style panels, background colour shifts). Keep consistency of design across chapters (fonts, colours, chart style) so the user isn’t distracted.
Storytelling
Add some emotion, stories aren't flat like "we did this, then this happened, this is what we learned". They often twist and turn and crucially make you feel something, often you will hear many negative personal stories to drive empathy in your audience. However you can make the emotion joyful, or comedy that would help an entry stand out. But balance emotion with clarity: the emotion should support the story and analysis, not overshadow them. Consider using a personal story to make the data more relatable.
Analysis
Make each chart make a point. And that point shouldn't be "what happened" but "why it happened" or "what it means" to your reader or the story. Avoid creating charts just because you can, each one should link back to the story or take the reader on journey through your viz.
From Louis
Design
I'm a big fan of thematic designs and it's a very useful trick to add something playful but leveraging on pre-attentive attributes. Once your audience know how it works (make sure you it's intuitive or well explained), you can use an icon or color in place of lengthy text to direct where you want your audience to see.
Storytelling and Analysis
One of the best advice I got was falling back to the 4MAT framework. That is:
- Why is this important?
- What affects this?
- How does this affect us?
- Where do we go from here.
With this simple framework to guide both your storytelling and analysis, you can ensure a coherent flow of thoughts.
