10 Iron Viz Feeder Tips: 2025 Edition — Reflections and Resources as an entrant, finalist, and judge
This year marks my 5th Iron Viz — I’ve been a participant, finalist, and feeder judge. Here are some tips I’ve accumulated based on that experience. The clock is ticking, so let’s get into it!
Storytelling, Analysis, and Design
1. Tell a story (and don’t make your readers struggle to find it)
As a former judge, this is the area I believe sets vizzes apart from each other. You may have a trendy design or very technical analysis, but if I don’t know why I should care about your chosen topic (or worse, I can’t tell why you care), it will be hard to get high marks in this category.
There are many ways to tell a story, but make sure you have one! Is there a question being asked? If you ask a question in your viz, is that question answered? Double check everything you have on the page — if a chart, image, or block of text doesn’t support your story, let it go.
Clearly indicate any interactivity, and check to see that your story flows so your readers aren’t playing hide and seek to find the results of your analysis.
2. You’re the expert in your topic — share your insights!
For a month you’ll be digging into data on your chosen subject — if you aren’t an expert in it already, by the end you probably will be.
However, your audience (and the judges) aren’t on that journey with you. Highlight insights as you present your analysis! Your readers should learn more than they could on their own by googling it.
You’ve got a unique perspective on your data-make sure that what you want your readers to know is explicitly on the page in chart and text.
3. Balance your charts, text, and images
It’s key to remember this is a data visualization competition! If you find yourself with big blocks of text, make sure it’s essential to your story.
Additionally- make sure your charts support your text, and vice versa. Make sure your story is backed up by the vizzes on the page.
Regarding images- don’t accidentally disqualify yourself by using copyrighted images!! And as always — make sure they enhance, and not distract from your analysis.
Getting through the competition
4. Set mini goals for yourself
At time of writing, there’s about two weeks left in the feeder competition. The time crunch will feel real as we get closer and closer to the 31st.
To make this feel less overwhelming, set mini goals for yourself. This could be making checkpoints for when you’ll have your charts, layout, or images finalized. For me, this year my mini goal is to experiment with using maps.
Having bite size goals will help you check off progress through days where it feels more like a slog than a sprint.
5. Take breaks!
Earlier this year I participated in the #30DayChartChallenge. This was a fun exercise, but doing 30 days straight of Tableau burned me out on data viz.
I know how tempting it is to keep plugging away every day — but make sure to schedule time away from the screen. This can help your ideas marinate, get new perspective, or simply help maintain your enthusiasm. You can’t keep running on an empty tank-don’t neglect your non-tableau life and make sure to recharge!
6. Remember that judging will always be subjective
When developing your viz, it will be tempting to design to what you think the judges will like. For better or worse, at the end of the day categories like “design” and “storytelling” will always be subjective — what one judge might think looks cool might not do it for another.
Your viz will be judged by multiple people — try not to get hung up too much on what they might think (outside of course, the listed judging criteria). In my winning feeder viz, one judge commented that they didn’t like that I used a certain chart type multiple times. It was my favorite part of my viz!
Focus on designing what make you proud. It’s frustrating if your design doesn’t resonate with the judges, but you’ll be confident you did your best.
Resources
Resource lists
I love hoarding bookmarks — and I’ve made a collection of them public. If you’re stuck on chart choosing, colors, images, or feedback, check out my collection on raindrop! I regularly add more resources at the following link: https://raindrop.io/brittanyrosenau
Opportunities for feedback
Feedback is a crucial part of the development process — after staring at your viz for what feels like 429283 hours, it‘s’ helpful to get fresh eyes.
A few options:
- Sarah Bartlett’s Iron Viz Feedback Initiative
- Viz Office Hours (hosted by Michelle Frayman and Nicole Klassen)
- I hang out in the Women in Data Viz slack and Data Visualization Society slack if you’d like to ping me for written feedback
- Your friends + family! A great test to see if your story is working is to have someone not in the data field read and interact with it.
Note: Just because you get feedback doesn’t mean you have to use it!
Official Iron Viz documentation
The best resource you can bookmark is the official Iron Viz page. You’ll find everything including past entries, resources, official rules, and more. https://www.tableau.com/community/iron-viz
Last but not least…
Win or Learn, You Can’t Lose!
Yes, only 3 people will make it to the stage next year in San Diego. But by participating in the Iron Viz feeders, you have the opportunity to learn so much about data collection, analysis, storytelling, and more. The sky is the limit for what you create (well, that and the 10k by 10k pixel size of a Tableau Dashboard). If you’ve made it this far, I hope you enter, and wish you the best in the competition!
