Iron Quest – Advanced Chart Types

Welcome back, everyone!

Earlier this month we had the pleasure of watching Paul, Brittany and Nirosh complete live on stage in the nail-biting 2023 Iron Viz final at Tableau Conference (TC)! If you missed it, I highly recommend watching it back on Salesforce+.

It was great to see the three finalists have their moment in the spotlight. They all worked tremendously hard to get to this point, starting from the Iron Viz feeder contest back at the end of 2022.

Fresh from TC, we’re back with a brand-new #IronQuest project!

If you’re feeling inspired after watching Iron Viz, or are simply committed to doing more vizzes and practising your Tableau skills post-TC, you’re in the right place! I’m confident this project will provide you with a fun opportunity to try something new and step out of your comfort zone.

The Theme

I’m excited to announce this month’s #IronQuest theme is Advanced Chart Types.

At the end of April, Tableau Public launched a brand-new pre-beta pilot, making Sankey diagrams and radial charts (namely, Sunburst and Donut charts) available as native chart types in the Tableau Public web-authoring experience! The pilot is only available for a limited time, until June 30th, 2023.

To help you make the most of the pilot, or perhaps try some new chart types, this #IronQuest will be focused on building a viz using an advanced chart type (essentially, any chart that is not available by default in the Tableau ‘Show Me’ menu).

However, for this challenge, you don’t have to make use of the Tableau Public pilot. If you would prefer to try building an alternative chart type, either from scratch or by using a template, we have plenty of resources to help you!

Start by taking a look at these resources shared by the community:

• LaDataViz, by Tristan Guillevin – includes lots of handy tools to help you to build Network, Sankey, Bump, Beeswarm and Voronoï Charts and Chord Diagrams
• Radar Charts – CJ Mayes
• Pizza Plot – CJ Mayes
• Curvy Tournament Bracket Template – CJ Mayes
• Curvy Bump Chart and Slope Chart Template – The Flerlage Twins
• Sankey Funnel Chart – The Flerlage Twins
• Joy Plot – The Flerlage Twins
• Coxcomb Chart – The Flerlage Twins
• Curvy Timeline – The Flerlage Twins
• Radial Family Tree – Brian Moore
• Tableau Data Viz Catalogue by Toan Hoang – includes resources to help you build various different non-standard chart types

For this challenge, you can viz any topic or data set you wish. The only requirement is that you pick a chart type that effectively visualises your data.

For data source inspiration, we encourage you to check out the following sites:

1. Data is Plural – a weekly newsletter of useful/curious datasets, published by Jeremy Singer-Vine. There have been 309 editions to date. All of the datasets are saved to a Google sheet for easy reference.
2. Flowing Data by Nathan Yau – a collection of datasets covering a broad range of topics
3. Information is Beautiful – a collection of datasets compiled by the Information is Beautiful team covering a broad range of topics. They also have an additional collection of datasets used to drive the visualisations in the Beautiful News book.
4. Public Data Sets – a list by Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic – a list of places to find free, publicly available datasets.
5. Makeover Monday – a collection of over 350 data sets from previous Makeover Monday challenges.

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How do I enter?

The process is simple:

• Source your data and build a viz that uses a non-standard chart type. You may choose to do a single-chart viz or build a non-standard chart into a larger piece. The choice is yours.
• Upload your viz to Tableau Public or somewhere where it can be openly viewed online. 
• Fill in the submissions tracker (embedded at the bottom of this post) so we can keep track of who is participating. This step is essential if you want to request feedback or be credited in the wrap-up blog post.
• If you opted in for feedback in step 3, the co-hosts and I will provide some constructive feedback on your viz after the submission period closes.

Top Tips

• You can use any data set (assuming you have permission to share it publicly).
• Always remember to credit your data source/s on your viz.
• Refrain from using any images or logos on your viz unless you have permission to do so.
• Remember the Iron Viz judging criteria and try to focus on all three; Design, Storytelling and Analysis.
• Think outside the box!

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Meet the Co-hosts

I’m excited to announce that I’ll be teaming up with the three co-hosts this month! All of my co-hosts love working with advanced chart types and they’ve all shared plenty of resources to help others tackle more complex charts, too!

Ken Flerlage

Tristan Guillevin

CJ Mayes

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When is the submission deadline?

The deadline for submissions is midnight PST on Sunday, July 2nd, 2023. Please use the submission form below to submit your entry.

Feedback will be provided (to those who request it) via a conversation recorded and posted to YouTube between the co-hosts and me in July. On the submissions form you can specify if you require feedback focused on the Iron Viz scoring criteria (design, storytelling and analysis) or more general data viz feedback.

Please note, that if we receive a large number of feedback requests (more than we can cover in two hours), we’ll initially prioritise those from Tableau beginners or those entering #IronQuest for the first time. Any remaining feedback will be shared with the authors directly via email.

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Continue the conversation and connect with other participants by following the #IronQuest hashtag on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Look out for the feedback video and recap blog post after we complete this challenge!

Thanks for reading and we look forward to seeing your entry!

Header image by Tristan Guillevin.