Feb 19, 2022
Thought-process behind the Michael Schumacher Viz
There is a reason the viz is grey in color and not Ferrari red.
After months of fretting and contemplating, my viz on Michael Schumacher was finally done in February this year. All because it was personal. Because it was Michael Schumacher who piqued my interest in F1, and entwined me in the world of champions like Niki Lauda, Aryton Senna, Alan Prost and many more.
To understand this post better — readers who haven’t seen the viz — please click here to review the viz.
Deciding the Storyline
First step was to define the story line; sections to be highlighted, and its order of appearance. This phase was pretty straight-forward. Considering the data available on the net, the sections finalized till now were: Intro, Path to F1, F1 Journey and Weighing the Champions. Including the section where his career metrics are weighed against other champions/drivers would help complete the visual.
Data Collection
Then comes the second phase of data collection. Well, Google came to the rescue. There is a plethora of sites from where data — organized and unorganized — was extracted. Fortunately, in this case, unorganized data can be easily substantiated in the form of quotes from other well-known people in the industry for Schumacher. This led to going through a lot of articles, videos, blogs and websites to narrow down the most appropriate quotes that fit the storyline. Quotes are more direct, impactful and message-driven. Much later on, came the point where Michael’s contribution towards Mercedes success needed to be covered. This subsection is very subjective so it was necessary to place an article link to substantiate it. The point I’m trying to drive home is that data collection didn’t happen just in the form of numbers but words and text too.
Deciding the Graphs
This was the most tedious, time consuming and difficult phase in the development of the viz. Schumacher’s F1 journey chart needed to be decided first due to the huge amount of data there. The need was of a graph which is comprehensible, and does not encourage too-much of eye-movement across the visual through scrolling. After unsatisfactory attempts at radar charts, layers and many more charts, it was time to surf other similar sites. Referring to Pinterest, led to a chart which formed the basis for the semi-circle chart in the F1 Journey section.
The finalization of the above graph made it easier to decide on the other two charts. For the Path to F1 section, four dendrogram charts were made. This covered the teams he was driving for and the number of races he participated to hone his skills, learn and become a part of the racing world. For the section ‘Weighing the Champions’, the curvy bump chart was the answer instead of the normal bump chart. Reason, the latter is more in sync with the other charts selected till now.
Revisit the story line
But even after this, it seemed incomplete. Nothing new was being covered. The need to do something unique required to revisit the storyline. Questions like why a visual on Michael Schumacher and not others or what puts him apart from others started cropping up in the mind. The answer was the constructors’ standing. (For those who are not aware constructors standing are calculated by adding points scored in each race by any driver for that constructor). Finally, the storyline seemed complete. But to project this data, a very simple dot chart was used.
According to Mo Wootten @ #SportsVizSunday weekly round-up:
“The use of the dot plot, colored by team and shaded by Michael’s career, really shows the transformative effect that a superstar driver can have on a team. It’s an effective visualization that allows the reader to absorb an insightful bit of analysis.”
Dashboard: Color, Font and Placement
Now comes the part where the data, text, and charts are to be placed on the dashboard. Michael Schumacher had retired from the F1 world before his skiing accident. Thus, the decision to make the viz somber to depict his current health state. Pinterest has a picture of Michael Schumacher which is in line with the story idea and the storyline. (note: the picture is taken from a site mentioned in the credits and it’s for non-commercial purpose only). This picture helped in defining the background color and the theme. For the font, Formula 1 font seemed to be the best choice. The text is in regular, and the title in bold. A balanced mix of images and text helped in deciding the placement of text and graphs on the dashboard.
To conclude, I’m aware that my Tableau Data Visualization journey is not even a year old, and am yet to reach the podium to truly do justice to Schumacher’s achievements. So, do recognize my tribute to the Champion for what it is, and take what learnings you like. After all, all long journeys begin with small steps.
