Storyboarding for Data Case: Visualizations and analysis in Tableau
Data Selection and Storyboarding
Choosing a dataset
Your first choice should be to analyze a dataset from work associated with the issue that you described earlier. Suggestion – ask your manager at work if there’s any opportunity for you to analyze data in order to identify an issue/opportunity that would require a solution.
If you are unable to come up with a data set from work, choose a data set that would be interesting to you for a problem or opportunity that should be explored. The data set has to be big enough for you to be able to create meaningful visualizations and analysis in Tableau and/or Excel. Take a look at some of these options for data sets:
- https://data.world/ (this one requires an account setup but the data sets are free)
- https://public.tableau.com/en-us/s/resources
- https://www.statcrunch.com/5.0/shareddata.php
- https://information.stpaul.gov/browse?limitTo=datasets&utf8=%E2%9C%93
Storyboarding your idea
This step would be similar to outlining your project. You’ll need to describe each of these steps for this module.
1. Choose a data set – this will be the ‘analysis’ portion of the story.
2. Begin to establish your storyboard and back fill your story
- Who cares? (This is your audience – the people that would care about the results of your analysis)
- What do they care about? (What’s the issue/opportunity that you’re looking to take care of)
- What’s the data? (These would be your visualizations)
- What’s the analysis of the data? (This would be explaining what the visualizations are saying.)
- What’s your prediction? (Based on the data, what will happen next based on your analysis?)
- What’s your prescription? (Based on the analysis, what do you suggest would be the best solution?)
3. Write a 5-page executive summary (in APA) discussing the story for your chosen dataset and submit below. References that you might include would be the source of your dataset and any research you’ve done on the organization’s website or other materials pertaining to the issue or opportunity.
For example:
If you find a dataset on Causes of Death in the United States and you’d like to explore that data – you would start by describing your audience. Who would care about this data and why would you present this information to them? Perhaps a sponsor who wishes to donate millions for research would want to know what you find in your analysis. What should you present to them? You might want to discuss the leading causes of death in a certain regions, or causes of death that are rising and/or decreasing over time.
Here’s a video to show how data is collected on passengers at an airline and how they come to their final analysis based on the data. Notice the critical thinking and the unconventional means by which they determine their final solutions. You should consider putting together a story like this.
This will be the basis for your final paper but only at a high level. Once you’ve finished your paper, submit it.
