Shape of YOU! Year End Review
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What is the shape of your life?
Ponder the 12 critical areas in life to see what your life looks like right now. Rank each one from 1 Ugg, very bad to 5 Perfect wouldn't change a thing above, and see how your life looks. A simple year end review that also provide a visual showing the shape of your life today. Check back from time to time to see how your life is changing.
Discussion
Happy New Year! I was looking for a New Year Themed viz to build this weekend. Knowing many people take stock of where things are going in their life, I thought I would play on the idea - "What is the shape of my life today?" using a radar chart—the shape of the graph changes based on a user's input
Why do a year-end review
Most people evaluate their year by what they accomplished professionally. This review takes a wider view. It looks at eight areas of life, not just work, and asks you to rate your current satisfaction in each one on a scale of 1 to 5. The goal is not to feel good or bad about any single number. The goal is to see the overall shape of your life right now and notice where the imbalances are.
The 12 Areas
Career and professional growth, finances and financial security, health and physical wellbeing, relationships and social connection, personal development and learning, fun and recreation, home environment and physical surroundings, and contribution or sense of purpose.
How To use The Ratings
Rate each area from 1 (UGGG/Very Dissatisfied) to 5 (Very Satisfied). Be honest, not aspirational. Once you have all eight scores, look at the pattern. Which areas cluster at the top? Which are consistently low? The areas rated lowest are your candidates for focus in the coming year, especially if they connect to other areas that are also suffering.
An imbalance is not automatically a problem. Sometimes you deliberately sacrifice balance in one area to push hard in another. The value of this exercise is making that trade-off visible and conscious rather than accidental.
Goals
Create a Radar Chart
Add user inputs to a viz as the only source of data
Make a New Years Themed vis
Challenges
Two challenges were immediately apparent. First, Tableau doesn't have a default radar chart as an option. I did find a way to create one using a hack in this blog post. Since the goal of the self-challenge was to create a Radar Chart, I moved forward. The second challenge, Tableau, doesn't have an easy way to have a viz created with only user input. Finding a hack on how to add user inputs, I got started. One thing I discovered, I did need some data to begin designing in Tableau. To solve this issue, I created a google sheet that listed the 12 areas critical in life as my design foundation. I selected these items based on Chris Guillebeau's blog post, a great one for year-end personal evaluations.
Results
Project goals achieved! A radar graph that the shape changes dynamically based on user inputs. I learned how to create a Radar Chart, have user inputs, and design a vis only based on user inputs. Though most multi-dimensional life reviews use Radar Charts, making this chart type in Tableau Software does not work well. If the goal of this self-assignment did not include a Radar Chart, a different chart would have been a better choice. By choosing another chart type, I would lose the "Shape Of You" concept.
Final Thoughts
A viz requiring two unused Tableau hacks is not a great starting point. The viz worked. Though it is possible with a more traditional data set, I might have been able to make the Radar Chart look better. Radar Charts in Tableau are very hacky. This project will most likely be the last time I use this graph style. The output is subpar, in my opinion. Creating a viz without data and only user input is possible. In the future, I would make a generic standalone dataset.
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