#SWDchallenge: makeover challenge
Mark your calendar on October 19th from 3–4PM ET: we’re planning a live virtual session that everyone is invited to join! The SWD team will be critiquing and making over a variety of data visualizations, including the one you’ll become familiar with through this challenge. Speaking of which…
Everybody loves a good makeover. That’s why HGTV is so popular: we relish seeing other people’s outdated kitchens (and other living spaces) transformed into something new. Beyond entertainment, when we reimagine someone else’s data visualization, we improve our own skills—flexing design muscles, increasing tool prowess, and testing different approaches to see what works and what might work even better.
If you’re going to remodel someone’s kitchen, you don’t start by walking in and proclaiming it ugly. You understand or make assumptions about aesthetic preferences and consider how someone is going to use the space. Then you determine what might be inhibiting optimal form or function currently and roll that into the redesign. This is a great starting point for data visualization makeovers as well.
A gentle reminder here: be considerate in your critique. (I feel like this should go without saying, but recent and unnecessary scathing comments about others’ graphs indicate otherwise. In response to those who haven’t followed this advice lately, I wrote this.) Being thoughtful in our feedback means taking into account not only how to articulate our logic and ideas, but also how we might appropriately communicate those to someone else.
That is what I challenge you with this month. We’ll provide the original graph and data. Your job is to thoughtfully critique it, then roll your suggested improvements into your makeover.
The challenge
Consider the following graph. It’s a real graph, made by a real person (we’ve anonymized it so we don’t share anything sensitive). Start by forming your considerate critique, then incorporate your ideas into an inspiring data viz makeover. Feel free to liberally make assumptions about the context, the data, the audience, and the purpose of this graph for the sake of the challenge. You can outline these assumptions in your commentary, along with your considerate critique.
You can download the original graph and data.
Share your creation in the SWD community by October 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 also to compare and contrast your approach with others' makeovers, and share your thoughts via comments and datapoints over the course of the month.
Related resources
Here are a few related resources. If you are aware of other good ones, please share in your submission commentary.
SWD podcast episode 1: the art of feedback
Let’s Practice! Exercise 9.3: give & receive effective feedback
Tune in to our October 19th virtual event: SWD data viz makeovers
For more data viz makeover practice, check out the exercise bank
We look forward to your considerate critique and magical makeovers. Don’t forget to tune in on October 19th to see the SWD team share our process live!
