When Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec began the Dear Data project, they had no idea of the impact their data postcards would have. Andy Kriebel and Jeffrey Shaffer, two data visualization experts who teach best practices, decided to follow these amazing artists week-by-week. Of course, two Tableau Zen Masters cant help but use Tableau along the way. In this talk, Andy & Jeff explain their story, explore the results of this journey, see how Tableau is helping them discover stories and learn how this project has helped them think more creatively and learn about themselves.
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Andy Kriebel
Head Coach
The Information Lab
Tableau Zen Master
@VizWizBI
Jeffrey Shaffer
Vice President, I.T. & Analytics
Unifund and Recovery Decision Science
Adjunct Professor, University of Cincinnati
@HighVizAbility
Jeff: Each week Giorgia and Stefanie pick a topic and gather the data
Jeff: Theyve created some spectacular, artsy postcards. We wanted to build on what the ladies were doing, but make it different. More about us and our skill sets.
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Jeff: How did this start? Why did you want to do it? What were you hoping to learn?
Andy: Why did I accept Jeffs invitation? What was I hoping to get out of it?
Andy: Really, this is nothing more than a year-long quantified self project. What is quantified self?
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Jeff and Andy: Why is it so much harder on a postcard?
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Jeff and Andy: Have we become better? What have we done differently as the project has gone along?
Andy: Started using pencil lines to help with alignment. Found a nice set of stencil to help with my terrible handwriting.
How do we create a backwards viz in Tableau?
Custom shapes for the highlight table. Searched for pen scribble, but ended up using my own.
Finding a backwards font.
Typing backwards harder than you think
Plotting values in the negative
Creating the unit chart show ID in and out.
How did I create this in Tableau?
Creating a Viz with no measures
Show Data (4 rows for color and 3 blanks)
Basically created a bullseye
3 blue pills with sort order (order is key)
Adjust size range to demonstrate shapes
How the heck do you collect data about being nice?
My initial thought was to do a word analysis for Tweets and emails, but that didnt interest me much. I considered tracking every time I said something nice to someone, but that would be a data collection nightmare.
Instead, I settled on a simple list of some of the people Im closest to and ways that I can be nicer to them.
I listed ways to be nice(r) to each person & assigned an icon to each.
Every week I look at how the ladies did their postcards, hoping for some creative inspiration. For this week, I liked how Giorgia used lots of different shapes and colours. I thought I should create palm trees with the branches reach out to a way I can be nicer.
I started by making a list of up to 12 ways that I could be nicer to each person. But I knew that if I wanted to draw trees in Tableau, I was going to need to create curves. So I added rows to the dataset to draw the curves.
For each row, I created a series of x/y coordinates which would tell Tableau how to play connect the dots.
I sent my first draft in Tableau to Jeffrey, super excited that I had made it work. And his reaction
Which left me feeling a bit like Jose Mourinho after another Chelsea defeat.
So back to the Tableau drawing board I went. If Jeff wants antenna charts, then thats what hell get.
Add Relationship to Columns and create a group
Drag X to the Columns and Y to the Rows
Disaggregate
Change Mark type to Line and add Path to the Path shelf
Create a Person Label field and add it to the Label shelf for the lines IIF([Path]=1 AND [Letter]='A',[Person],'')
Add X again and make it dual axis and synchronize
Change the mark type to Shape
Add Category to Colour and hide the Null
Add Way to be Nicer to the Shape shelf
Assign the icons and resize
Cleanup the viz
Creating a plain US map outline in Tableau. Not as easy as it sounds.
Getting a shapefile for Tableau for US National Map Equal Area (EPSG: 2163)
Thank you Tableau Zen Master and Map Master Allan Walker.
So now we have a US map as a polygon. Hide the Tableau map layer. 100% transparent.
How can we put shapes on a polygon map?
Dual axis with polygon and shape not so easy.
Created fields with lat/lon as separate Polygon IDs
Then created dummy value for US map (to ignore in shapes)
Real Value for size and shape for Cities
Used photoshop to created a burned effect circle
Fortunately I drank more water than beer, but it was close.
...with water accounting for nearly half of my drinks.
For the key on the postcard, I sized the bubbles by the size of the drink and colored by the color you would associate with each drink.
I struggled getting everything to line up and had to rip up two postcards. Finally, my wife stepped in and suggested using light pencil lines to help with alignment. This was the first week that I started focusing on handwriting techniques, though you cant tell.
Oscar collected his data in the Notes app on his iPhone and started sketching ideas for how he wanted it to look on the postcard. When I suggested alternatives for the pies, he said too bad!
After threatening to remove him from the family, he created alternative versions. First, he made a bar chart.
Then he sketched a line chart.
Oscar wanted to create something in Tableau too, so he downloaded Tableau, got his free student license, and went through the first few training videos.
In his own words The fun part, that I find, about Tableau is that there is a ton of combinations that you can make with only a few options given to you so that you can discover what happens.
Not a bad way to spend his summer.
Andy & Jeff
His final Tableau version was created with story points.
His final Tableau version was created with story points.
His final Tableau version was created with story points.
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I never really found a version of this that was close enough.
Would likely have to plot individual points on an x/y because a formula for this would be hard to match.