#SWDchallenge: what does your audience know?

It's no surprise that we have to know our audience in order to communicate effectively with our data. Unless we consider who they are, what they care about, and how they prefer to consume information, we'll be unable to tailor our messaging so that it connects and resonates as best as is possible.

Sometimes we think about basing our messaging around whether our audience is “knowledgeable” or not. After all, the audience’s familiarity and expertise levels would drive, for instance, how much background information we would feel compelled to provide, or how technical we would get with the detail we include in our charts. We might worry that we're wasting people's time if they already know the basics of the topic under discussion. By the same token, we wouldn’t want to barge forward with technical details and dense jargon in a presentation to an audience that could use a refresher or a broader overview.

We don’t always think to consider whether our audience is "knowledgeable" in a data literacy sense. We are all multifaceted humans, and we are all familiar with different things. And if we are considering the knowledgeability of our audience, we need to include more than just “familiarity with the data” or “works in the subject area” as our criteria for assessing knowledgeability. We should consider whether a chart type might be seen as brand new or old hat.

Sometimes you will have an audience that isn’t familiar with the subject, but is very comfortable with data and complex visualizations. Sometimes you’ll have audiences that are industry leaders in their particular fields, but are unfamiliar with charts beyond the most basic forms.

I’ve struggled with this distinction in my own work. I've spent a lot of time collaborating with people in the data visualization space, so my idea of “what chart is easy to understand?” can be skewed compared to the broader business world. So at times, even when I correctly assessed and tailored my work to the specific subject matter expertise of my audience, the graphs I delivered didn't resonate, because they were too unfamiliar.

For this challenge, consider two different extremes of “knowledgeable.” Using any data set you like, find a message that you’d use a data visualization to convey. (For example, if you wanted to build a visualization about, say, Sanrio characters or Minecraft, kids may be subject matter experts but would be unfamiliar with a lot of graph types, whereas adults might know very little about the topic area but could be educated via more complex visuals.) 

Create two visualizations that get that message across, one for each of two different audiences: 

• For version 1, imagine that your audience really knows the subject matter, but is used to seeing data in tables and is not particularly familiar with data visualization.  

• For version 2, imagine that your audience knows next to nothing about the subject you’re visualizing, but would be comfortable with whatever esoteric chart you could throw at them.

Share your creations in the SWD Community by August 31, 2023 at 5PM PT. If there is any specific feedback or input that you would find helpful, include that detail in your commentary. Take some time to browse others’ submissions, too, and share your input via comments and datapoints over the course of the month.

#SWDchallenge: bring on the bubbles

This month for the #SWDchallenge, we are asking you to create a specific type of visual: a bubble chart. 

Bubble charts allow the comparison of multiple dimensions at once. Data points are placed on an X and a Y axis, and then additional characteristics (like colour, size, marker type, and possibly motion) can be used to encode even more elements. What starts out essentially as a scatter plot can quickly become complicated, far less intuitive than a simple bar or line chart, and to an unfamiliar audience, confusing and overwhelming. 

These feelings of confusion are due to the human brain’s limited short-term memory. We can only store only about four pieces of visual information at once, so a five-dimensional bubble chart taxes our working memory, leading to feelings of being overwhelmed.

Despite this, it is possible to create an effective and engaging bubble chart. The mention of this particular visual may remind you of the late Hans Rosling, who presented them brilliantly in videos for the BBC and TED talks. For this challenge, you are going to channel your inner Hans. 

The challenge

Find some data of interest that will lend itself well to being represented with a bubble chart, and create that visual using your tool of choice. 

As you’ve learned, even the best designed bubble charts can be challenging for an audience to interpret at first glance. As part of this challenge, think about how you can make things easier for the viewer by leveraging at least one of these strategies in your design.

Include a takeaway observation or call to action.  Consider what people should do with the information you are sharing. Use words to highlight an interesting discovery within the visual, or create a clear takeaway title based on your recommended course of action (make assumptions freely for the purpose of this challenge).

Use interactivity. Dynamic visuals can educate the audience about how to read the chart through tooltips and navigation features like animation and filters. If you decide to build interactivity into your submissions, please share the link to the design in the commentary. 

Go full Hans Rosling and animate and narrate through the chart progression. Build your bubble chart and then consider how you would talk your audience through the key points. Then, record yourself stepping through the progression or annotate the key talking points in the commentary. This highlights the crucial role YOU play in how your graph is received and is a great way to help your audience become familiar with a more complicated visual. Video submissions are now enabled for the #SWDChallenge! All common file formats are accepted.

If you need help finding a data source, check out this list of publicly available data for inspiration. Real-world work examples could also work as long as you anonymize appropriately.  

Share your beautiful bubbles in the SWD Community by Monday, July 31st at 5PM ET. If there is any specific feedback or input that you would find helpful, include that detail in your commentary. Take some time to browse others’ submissions, too, and share your input via comments and data points over the course of the month.

Related Resources

A few suggestions for understanding bubble charts and practical tips on creating them are mentioned below. If you are aware of other good ones, please share them in your submission commentary. 

• what is a bubble chart? SWD chart guide

• Explore how to create a bubble chart in Microsoft Office

• Practice improving an unfamiliar bubble chart with the SWD community exercise what's the story here?

#SWDchallenge: making or missing the mark?

Businesses often set targets to measure progress toward their desired results, such as setting a minimum customer satisfaction level or a monthly sales quota. Goals are also commonplace in personal life, like aiming to save money or improving health measurements. Keeping track of how you’re doing compared to a target can provide positive reinforcement (when the results are good) or highlight where changes may be needed (when the results leave something to be desired).

There are many ways to visualize data with an eye toward emphasizing performance against a projected target. Common chart types like pairwise bars or time series data in a line chart could work. Other options may involve more novel approaches, like a bullet graph, a slopegraph, or even simple text. 

For this month’s #SWDChallenge, we want you to show us what is making or missing the mark by graphing actual data against a projected goal or forecasted metric.

CHALLENGE

Find some data of interest that includes historical projections and actual performance, then visualize the information in whatever way you think would be the most effective. We encourage you to employ thoughtful use of color and words–including a takeaway title–to make it clear whether the desired goal was obtained.

If you need help finding a data source, check out this list of publicly available information for inspiration. Real-world work examples are also acceptable as long as you anonymize appropriately.

Share your creation in the SWD Community by May 31, 2023 at 5PM PT. If there is any specific feedback or input that you would find helpful, include that detail in your commentary. Take some time to browse others’ submissions, too, and share your input via comments and datapoints over the course of the month.

RELATED RESOURCES

A few suggestions for comparing actual data against a target are mentioned above, and below are some additional related resources. If you are aware of other good ones, please share them in your submission commentary.

• Options for visualizing a budget gap

• A makeover using a dot in a forecast range

• Consider dotted lines for targets or goals

• Explore our previous challenge about uncertainty

#SWDchallenge: remake a famous graph

”Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.” —George Santayana

Believe it or not, the common formats we use today to visualize our data haven’t always existed. Someone invented the bar chart, the line graph, the pie chart, and so on. Individual people, in their own quests to communicate more effectively with data, have constantly been developing, refining, and in many cases discarding different techniques and visual methods for getting key messages across. 

In corporate communications, straightforward, simple, versatile and—let's be frank—easy-to-produce graphs have proven to be the most enduring. But some of the most renowned individual graphs in history had custom designs that, although hard to understand for us today, were memorable and groundbreaking in their own time.

Nearly 200 years ago, the world first saw the "traveling wave" visualization of population growth by William Playfair, a statistician and a pioneer of statistical graphics. In the first half of the 19th century, the pioneering geographer John Snow used an early typeset to show the geographic distribution of a cholera outbreak in London. French engineer Charles Joseph Minard made a number of graphical presentations of data, including a map depicting the disastrous 1812 French invasion of Russia (popularized in no small part by its prominent mentions in the more recent works of Edward Tufte).

Florence Nightingale’s rose graphs conveyed the story of mortality versus causes for different hospitals. W.E.B. Du Bois created a series of visualizations bringing attention to many aspects of the life and history of the African-American population, from the beginning of the first census in 1790 through 1910. In more recent history, the works of Nigel Holmes, characterized as amusing by some and tacky by others, display unexpected, playful imagery with straightforward chart forms. Hans Rosling provided us with a famous animated bubble graph of life expectancy and wealth over the course of centuries. 

Furthermore, if we broaden our definition of “famous graphics'' to include common infographic forms, we can consider examples such as a subway map (like those from the cities of New York, London, or Tokyo), the periodic table of elements (used for various purposes), or singular drawings like the "jittery needle" from The New York Times to show election return uncertanties, and the "flatten the curve" graph that Rosamund Pearce first created for The Economist, and became renowned to inform people about COVID-19's spread in early 2020.

The challenge

This month, we ask you to pick any famous historical infographic or visualization, and remake it in a form of your own choosing. You can simplify it, modernize it, limit its scope—whatever you feel is appropriate. (Try to find as close to the actual original data as you can, where possible; otherwise, take your best guess or make assumptions—noting in the footnote of your visual that you have done so—in the spirit of the challenge guidelines. Nobody is making business decisions based on the data you visualize here!)

You may feel that it's presumptuous to think that we could improve on these wildly famous and enduring visuals. To that, I counter that we have somewhere between 100 and 200 years more knowledge and technological advancements on our side...plus, we have immediate access to almost the entire breadth of the world's accumulated work. Those advantages alone should give you a fair chance at creating, at the minimum, an arguably comparable product as the original—and considering that the audience you'll be working for is also very different, you can tailor your submission to appeal specifically to them.

Submit your challenge entry—as well as a screenshot of your chosen historical visualization as a comparative—no later than March 31, 2023 at 5pm ET. In your commentary, describe why you chose your source visual to makeover and what you tried to improve. Take some time also to browse others’ submissions, and share your input via comments and datapoints over the course of the month. We’ll be discussing and highlighting some of your submissions for the broader storytelling with data audience in the future, so share as much insight into your makeover as you are comfortable doing.

Related resources

The history of data communication is surprisingly rich and interesting to investigate; Allen Hillery, RJ Andrews, and Jason Forrest are just some of the authors who have written excellent books and articles on the topic.

Data for at least some of the above mentioned graphs are available online, including:

• John Snow's cholera map

• Minard's Napoleon's march

• Florence Nightingale's rose graph

• Hans Rosling's animated bubble graph
  

#SWDchallenge: partner up

It’s February, which means it’s time for Valentine’s Day—traditionally a time to think about love and one’s romantic relationships. In recent years, the scope of the season has broadened, inspiring us to take stock of all the relationships in our lives (Galentine’s Day anyone?), and celebrate the meaningful connections we have with other people. 

Have you ever heard the phrase, “If you want to go fast, go alone; but if you want to go far, go together?” This is true for many facets of life, including our work. When it comes to effective data communication, there are many benefits to working with someone else, including but not limited to:

• Comparing ideas on how to graph the data

• Learning about a new tool—or a trick you didn’t know in one you use frequently

• The importance of feedback—both giving and receiving  

This connection is what we’re going to inspire you to explore in this month’s challenge. 

The challenge

Consider the following slide, which shows the effectiveness of an ad campaign. The ad was shown on either TV only or digital only (further segmented by desktop, phone and tablet). The effectiveness was measured in total (left chart) and by week for 6 weeks (right chart). The metric being graphed is incremental reach per 1,000 impressions. (For those unfamiliar with this metric, “incremental reach” defines how much MORE of an audience a specific advertising campaign engages, over and above the audience that existing campaigns are already reaching. So, for instance, your new campaign might engage 500 people per 1,000 impressions, but if 495 of those people would have been reached by other, existing campaigns, then the “incremental reach” would only be 5 per 1,000 impressions, or 0.5%.) 

Your challenge is to makeover this slide to improve its impact. The caveat: you must work WITH SOMEONE ELSE to create your remake. There are some additional metrics included in the download, which you may choose to incorporate as you think about how you’d improve its effectiveness. Broadly speaking, make assumptions as needed and take liberties with the intended audience for your remade slide.

WHO SHOULD YOUR PARTNER BE? You are free to choose whomever you like, whether it’s a friend, colleague, or fellow community member (reply to this thread to indicate interest). Your partner doesn’t HAVE to be part of the SWD community, although we’d love for you to encourage them to join. 

HOW SHOULD YOU AND YOUR PARTNER COLLABORATE? We won’t get too prescriptive on the partner piece, but here are a few ways you could you utilize another person in this challenge:

• Partner up to critique the visual and create a list of improvements to make. You may some helpful framework in the past critique (then recreate) challenge. 

• Ask for—and incorporate—someone’s feedback in your remake 

• Utilize a tool SME and learn how to execute your remake in a new tool 

• Sketch out makeover ideas separately, and then compare to see where you are in alignment before developing a final version

• Have your partner role play as different audiences while you iterate through options 

WHERE DO YOU GET THE DATA? Download the data and original visuals here. There are some additional metrics which you may choose to incorporate as you think about how you’d improve its effectiveness. Make assumptions as needed for the purpose of improving the slide.

HOW DO YOU SUBMIT YOUR CHALLENGE AS A TEAM?  Either you or your partner should share your remade slide in the community by February 28th at 5PM ET. In your commentary, describe your process as completely as you can: how you and your partner decided to work together; what role each of you took in the creation of the makeover; what you learned from the experience; and if there’s any further feedback you’d like from the community. Take some time also to browse others’ submissions, and share your input via comments and datapoints over the course of the month. We’ll be discussing and highlighting some of your submissions for the broader storytelling with data audience in the future, so share as much insight into your makeover as you are comfortable doing.

Related resources

Here are a few related resources. If you are aware of other good ones, please share in your submission commentary.

• The power of partnering up for virtual presentations 

• Good feedback: giving and receiving

• Critiquing a visual: questions to ask 

#SWDchallenge: quantified self

Happy New Year! For many, this is the traditional opportunity to both think back on the preceding twelve months and to look forward to the year ahead. This period of reflection often inspires us to formalise a few optimistic aspirations, in the form of  New Year’s resolutions.

Many of the resolutions I’ve set for myself over the years have fallen by the wayside before the festive decorations have been dismantled and stored away in the attic. In retrospect, it’s easy to see why they were unsuccessful: my good intentions were most often thwarted by either a lack of sufficient motivation (e.g., I was not yet ready to quit smoking when I was still in my invincible-feeling early 20s), or a lack of sufficient data (for tracking, assessing, and rewarding my progress).  

I’m a firm believer of the saying, “That which is measured improves.” In my experience the more I track and hold myself to account for the goals I’ve set, the more successful I am in achieving them. This is where the quantified self (self-knowledge through numbers), or QS, movement can come to our aid. We now have access to a huge array of tools, resources and technologies which allow us to track all manner of activities.

One common application of QS is the use of devices to track running stats or other fitness-related activities, helping us measure our progress towards a physical goal.  However, QS can also be used to learn something about ourselves that perhaps we hadn’t considered before, for example;

• Our social media activity or exploring the data social media platforms have on us

• Music listening habits

• The consumption of television via streaming services

• Particular travel or vacation habits

• The ability to accurately track income and expenditure

The challenge

To usher in the new year we are asking you to provide a visualisation using your tool of choice (or even hand-drawn) that quantifies yourself in some way. Share your submission in the community by January 31st at 5PM ET. If there is any specific feedback or input that you would find helpful, include that detail in your commentary.

We are excited to see your quantified self creations and wish you a very happy, healthy and prosperous 2023.

Related Resources

• For inspiration, check out one of the first, and most well-known, ongoing quantified self initiatives: the IIB Award-winning Feltron Annual Report, which designer Nicholas Felton produced each year from 2005 through 2014. 

• A number of resources (mostly free) that allow you to quantify yourself

• Many sketched quantified self submissions were shared in the March 2021 #SWDChallenge - draw your data