TOKOPEDIA — ASIAN GAMES 2018 INFOGRAPHIC
by Tokopedia Business Intelligence Team
In the spirit of Asian Games 2018, we created an infographic using Tableau which also gave us the opportunity to explore more of its features and develop some new skills and techniques. The final result was posted on Tableau Public which is accessible here:
And as a bonus, on August 16,2018, our work was featured as Viz of the Day in Tableau Public!
Here are 6 keys that we had learned throughout the journey of creating the infographic.
Objective is Everything, Always Have it In Mind
The journey begun by inviting each team member to throw any ideas they had in minds and quickly, the ideas flooded the floor and we were overwhelmed. Progress was slow, things went on circle, and decision made was reconsidered. We then realized that the main message should be clearly defined to avoid more time spent carelessly. Any ideas thrown must align with it.
Soon after, we managed to have a more efficient discussion and visible progress. It is also important that every team member reminded others whenever he/she felt that the discussion went further from the main message.
Let it Flow
Reader loves stories. A good flow and storyline will make it easier for them to understand the message that author wants to convey and also make them willing to spend more time in it. This is what we believe is also crucial in an infographic.
We chose to use a flow which started from general information and ended with a more specific information. The infographic was started by introducing the torch relay, an event that always occurred in each Asian Games, followed by several information of participating countries and ended by facts of this year’s event.
Get Inspired
With all the ideas and flow on hands, the next on plate is, how should we serve it? Tableau has tons of great individual feature but this is causing us to have some difficulties on choosing and constructing a proper type of diagram, charts, or actions for each section. Which diagram can convey a more effective message? Which feature can be used to combine several charts?
For this, Tableau Public was our bible. Not only it provided us with the nuts and bolts of infographics in Tableau, it also let us know the way to recreate it.
So Many Choices, So Little Space
Sometimes, too many options makes it harder to choose. The main question that we had was how we could efficiently use the limited space that enable reader to explore it with less effort.
There were 2 things that we kept in mind while exploring the options. The first one was to see which feature is applicable to our messages. And the second one was to check if this feature would give us the opportunity on gaining some new tricks in our sleeves!
Keep It Simple, Yet Informative
A picture is worth a thousand words. Showing many data, along with its description, is not necessarily a good thing to do as it might cause the reader spending longer time to digest the information.
As an example, in one of the section, we wanted to highlight Indonesia’s consistent performance throughout the years in Asian Games, specifically in Badminton. The following diagram was chosen as it can clearly visualize each year’s achievement along with the top participating countries without much explanation needed.
Color is another important aspect that needed to be kept simple. Readers tend to get confused on consuming a high number variety of it. Keeping this in mind, the team assigned red as the only bright color to highlight Indonesia, and diverging shades of grey to other countries.
Leverage Features for Interactivity
Tableau is a great platform which allows user to choose and see the data as how they see fit. Creating an infographic in Tableau gave us the opportunity to apply actions that enable reader to interact with it while also helping them to understand the information in shorter time.
We managed to combine several features throughout the infographic. One section enables reader to see the detail information while still having the overall information in the background.
While another section has a slightly different feature where it allows reader to see the overall and detail information separately.
A hyperlink is another great feature of Tableau which enabled us to embed the link directly in the infographic. As mentioned earlier, we gained several ideas and information from various sources, mostly, online.
And The Journey Goes On
So, what did we gain from this? A great opportunity to learn and show off our skills in both Tableau and effective visualization. Is this the end of the journey? Nope. Are we going to do it again? Of course! As this might be far from perfect, we are committed to improve ourselves by doing more projects and deliver better results in the future. For now, we are proud that we took the first step to make it happen. And next, we will make it better!
