3 Iron Viz Tips from 3 Iron Viz Champions
Iron Viz, the world’s largest data visualization competition is back for another year. Personally speaking, it's a fantastic way to showcase your Tableau skills, break out of the usual dashboard-building rhythm, and potentially win a trip to the Tableau Conference—and more!
You can learn more about the contest here: Iron Viz Competition
Having won the contest in 2022, I've been interviewing the recent champions, Paul Ross and Chris Westlake for their tips for the Iron Viz Qualifiers. Going back over the interview, three key themes emerged which I will share below.
The interviews with Chris Westlake and Paul Ross are at the end of this blog containing plenty of extra advice.
Go with Your Interests
The topic of entertainment gives you a broad scope for choosing a subject. It's vital to find something you're genuinely interested in. If you're passionate about it, chances are others will be too. You'll want to learn more, explore that curiosity through analysis, and you'll have more creative ideas to work with.
The topic and angle didn't come to me straight away, but out of all the ideas I had, it was the one that held my interest the longest and so was the right choice for a qualifier entry.
Thankfully there are plenty of datasets available to start exploring to find your story:
Charts: Complexity vs Accessibility
Many of us dataviz creators admire elaborate charts - radials plots, beautiful colours, perhaps using map layers—the sort of vizzes you're not going to find under the "Show Me" pane. However, all this self-indulgence can make it more challenging for your audience (and those judges) to interpret your work.
Paul Ross's board game guide employed scatter plots and clear annotations. This approach ensured even those unfamiliar with board games could easily navigate the data and discover games suited to their preferences.
For Chris Westlake's hunger viz, simple charts were used throughout, with more analysis available behind show/hide containers. This helps pace the story for your readers; if they're interested, they can dive into one of those containers and learn more. If not, they can follow the story you've outlined.
And me? I started with simple bar charts but then dived into radar plots and a Sankey. While not standard chart types, I believe they create good visual interest. I added text to different sections of the charts to help users gain insights from the view.
A great way to check the readability of a chart is to get a friend or colleague to review it and ask them what they understand from it. If the message you're trying to communicate doesn't match what they say, it's an opportunity to update and adjust the chart to help them see your insights.
Build in Sections
Chapters in books benefit the reader by providing natural stopping points, and they benefit the writer by structuring the work and marking progress through the story. The same technique can divide up your analysis, offering the same benefits for you and the reader.
Paul Ross praised the "numbered chapter" approach as it helps the reader know where they are and how much further they have to go—particularly helpful for long-form visualisations. For the writer, having a finite space helps determine whether an idea is too big or too small, allowing you to refine sections into manageable chunks.
Separating sections is one thing; you still have to ensure your story flows through those sections. In Chris's viz, a numbered chapters approach is used, but notice how each chapter is a question—it effectively hooks you in to read and find the answer.
In my case, I didn't have sections, but I had specific pieces of analysis I wanted to show, and between them was a comic strip. It worked with the drawing theme and used these sections as a break from computer text to tie everything together. Similarly, we saw snakes and ladders used by Paul to draw your eyes to the next chapter.
If you'd like more Iron Viz tips, check out my interviews with Chris Westlake and Paul Ross, as well as my playlist of tips from 2023.