Data Analysis & Visualization Challenges

Q: What is Viz for Social Good?

Viz for Social Good is a community challenge where participants create projects for non-profit organizations using real data provided by the organization. The work is used by the non-profit directly, making it one of the most impactful challenge formats available.

Q: What is an elevator viz?

An elevator viz is a single focused project built around one clear takeaway, the equivalent of an elevator pitch in analytical form. The constraint of one sheet, one theme, and one message produces cleaner and more impactful work than trying to show everything at once.

Community Challenges and Self-Assigned Projects

“The beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you.”

— B.B. King

Project At A Glance

This collection brings together community challenges and self-assigned projects exploring topics from nurses' salaries to wildlife populations, plastic crisis to CEO pay ratios. Community challenges like Makeover Monday and Viz for Social Good provide a dataset and a deadline. Self-assigned projects start with a question worth answering and end with something a person can actually use. Each entry is built around a single focused takeaway, an elevator pitch in analytical form. The goal is always the same: make it clear, make it matter, make it useful.

theYvonneCovid-19.-Super-Spreader.-Event.jpeg — What’s a Challenge?

About
Challenges start with a single theme, topic, or data set with a challenge to produce a visualization within a limited time. The time could be a week or a month. If you accept the challenge, what you learn is up to you. It may be a new chart type, calculation, way of looking at the data, or learning something from exploring a new data set. Upon completing the viz, you can share your work with the community to get feedback or say, “I completed this.” However, you choose to share or which challenges to accept the process will change you.
(Looking for datasets or tools to use in your own challenge submissions or additional community challenges? Visit the Resources page for a curated list of data viz tools, free datasets, and community challenges.)

Design Decisions
I approach challenges as short, focused projects, typically one sheet with one viz. Though the data set is rich in ways to tell its story, my approach focuses on a key overarching theme. Creating an elevator viz for the data, highlighting the critical item I want the viewer to take away from the data set. I also use the challenges to try a new approach or view

Challenge Types

Self Assigned

From time to time, I will see a visualization in the wild that I want to recreate to learn how it was made or to change its style. I may also want to explore a data set to develop a quick viz with a given time limit.

Community Challenge

There is a community challenge to match each person. A list of challenges can be found on the My Resources page, in the Challenges section. Each challenge has its own hashtags and communities. The ability to see different visualization versions of the same data set you worked on gives you the ability to learn from the community and grow as an analyst.

Challenges are how skills grow fastest. A tight deadline, a shared dataset, and feedback from a community that cares about the work — that combination produces better results than working alone. Every challenge here taught something that carried forward into the next project.

Challenges

Featured

Demons in the Data: A US “Scary Dream” Search Analysis

Analyzing Google Trends for the search term “Scary Dreams” by month from 2009 -2023, it is unsurprising that October had the highest search number.

Never Married Is on the Rise

There is a rise of both men and women who have never married over time in every age group. As people age, the number of people who have never married decreases but the percentage of unwedded in 2016 is still higher than in 2006

Who Can Reduce The Plastic Crisis?

The top 20 producers in 2019 of single-use plastic items make 50 % of all items globally. The top 100 producers account for 90 % of the products produced. Single-use Plastic (SUP) is 98 % manufactured from fossil fuels and accounts for 1/3 of the plastic made. This use of virgin plastic means more pollution in the environment, less recycling, and more waste. A small group of people can change the world better if they move away from single-use plastics to produce their products.

Nurses' Salaries - Best and Worst in US

Like the cost of living, nursing median salaries are different in different states. The national median salary average is $74,313, according to the Registered Nursing Labor Stats (1998-2020). Eleven states have a higher than average nursing salary, while thirteen states below the average wage for Nurses. Twenty-six state the salaries are within +/- 10 % of the national average.

Decreasing Wildlife Populations

The Living Planet Report by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) is responsible for the Living Planet Index. This project gathers data on the Earth's biodiversity. In 2020, the Living Planet Index reported a 68 % decline in wildlife populations since 1970. This one number is a reflection of 20,000 individual stories on how each animal species is surviving. Having one value is a great way to get an overall understanding; knowing the status of each population is extremely important. This knowledge allows us to prioritize conservation efforts on threatened specials and groups. Looking below the Index value, one can see if different groups have more Stable, Increasing, or Decreasing Populations.

What Does 1GB of Mobile Data Cost By Country?

Connecting to the internet via Mobile Data is critical today. The higher the cost, the more significant the barrier it is for people to improve themselves and enhance their lives. India has the lowest price per 1 GB due to high competitiveness among multiple carriers. The higher cost tends to be driven either by limited competition or limited infrastructure. Data from the Visual Capitalist provided the cost per 1 GB for 155 different countries is the Makeover Monday 2021 Week 19 challenge (What Does 1 GB of Mobile Data Cost in Every Country?)— combining that data with information on World Bank Region and Income Group Classification.

CEO-to-Worker Compensation Ratio Rising

Evaluating Chief Executive Officers (CEO) of 350 of the largest US firms shows that CEO compensation has grown exponentially. In contrast, the average workers' earnings have not increased at the same rate. The report from the Economic Policy Institute indicates that the rate of increase is not due to increased skill but the CEO's ability to set their pay rates.

Global Support of Polish Women's Reproductive Rights

To Jest Wona! This is War! The protesters chanted, not just in Poland, in Europe but around the world. On the 22nd of October 2020, the Polish Constitutional Tribunal voted on a law to prohibit abortion in Poland, practically speaking. 73 % of the people of Poland disagree with the ruling. This vote triggered protests in support of around the world for Polish women and men.

Seats Held by Women in National Parliaments and Governments

Tracking the percentage of women working in Parliament since the European Union (EU) started. Some countries have always had close to 50 % women in government. Other countries have worked to decrease the equality in their parliaments.

Participation of Women in The Olympics Over Time

Makeover Monday 2021 Week 10 challenge uses data from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) about Women's Participation in The Olympics Over Time. The was selected since that Monday was International Women's Day. The data source is from IOC; the original challenge viz is from an article on swimswam.com. I created line charts that show the number of participants and events for both the Winter and Summer Olympics have been getting closer to 50%. One fantastic fact discovered is the Winter Olympics Events in 2018 were 52% women.

What is the World’s Biggest Cash Crop?

Makeover Monday 2021 Week 11 challenge is to create a viz to answer the question: "What is The World's Biggest Cash Crop?". The data source is from FOASTAT; the original challenge viz is from Information Is Beautiful. Also, not all the data used to create their viz is provided. The second challenge is to create a complete viz in 20 mins to prep for certification testing.

Europe Loves Cocoa Beans

Makeover Monday 2020 Week 52 challenge's topic is Global Import of Cocoa Beans. The source of the data is the Centre for the Promotion of Imports (CBI). After I reviewed the data, my viz's focus was Europe Loves Cocoa Beans, since the EU has the highest levels of cocoa bean imports.

Shape of YOU! Year End Review

Shape of YOU! Year End ReviewWhat 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 things look and check back from time to time to see how your life is changing.

Is Die Hard a Holiday Movie?

Is Die Harda Holiday Movie?With a character named Holly and set on Christmas Eve, sounds like a holiday movie. Even full of christmas songs, another essential criteria, many say Die Hard can not be called a holiday movie, let alone a classic holiday movie like It's a Wonderful Life. The data confirms not only is Die Hard a holiday movie, but it is also a popular one when compared to the gold standard of holiday movies.

For The Curious

What is Makeover Monday?

Makeover Monday is a weekly community challenge where participants redesign an existing chart using the same underlying data. It is one of the most active communities in the data world, running every week with a shared dataset and open feedback from participants and organizers.

What is Viz for Social Good?

Viz for Social Good is a community challenge in which participants create projects for non-profit organizations using real data provided by those organizations. The work is used directly by the non-profit, making it one of the most impactful challenge formats available.

What is a self-assigned challenge?

A self-assigned challenge is a project where the practitioner sets their own constraints — topic, dataset, deadline, and format. It builds the same skills as community challenges, but allows complete creative control over the subject matter and approach.

What is an elevator viz?

An elevator viz is a single-focused project built around one clear takeaway, the equivalent of an elevator pitch in analytical form. The constraint of one sheet, one theme, and one message produces cleaner and more impactful work than trying to show everything at once.

What topics are covered in these challenges?

Topics covered include nurses' salaries, wildlife populations, the plastic crisis, CEO pay ratios, mobile data costs, and more — each selected because the data tells a story worth understanding and sharing.