Secrets of the Viz

This week's guest is Nick Lim, a Singapore-based product design lead who drops by to share about his unique, AI-assisted portfolio site and why many AI-era portfolios look the same. Nick shares how he used Claude to quickly generate a PostHog-inspired, macOS Snow Leopard-style interactive portfolio where case studies open as draggable windows, then used Gemini to generate a custom “paperback chicken” mascot hero image with personal elements like coffee, photography, and fitness. He explains the long iteration process to animate the hero section, challenges like hallucinations and looping issues, and prompting tips such as limiting movements and using references because models interpret prompts differently. Nick also describes “nick.ai,” a Claude Haiku API chatbot built from context files, guardrails, and a “Nick Vibes” voice file to answer portfolio and work-style questions while avoiding obvious AI output.https://nicklimzf.com/desktop/00:00 - Prompting Animation Limits01:56 - Job Hunt Sparks New Site03:08 - PostHog Inspired Desktop UI\04:29 - Claude Builds First Prototype05:52 - Mascot Art with Gemini07:06 - Animating the Hero Loop08:22 - Vibe Coding Reality Check09:40 - Avoiding AI Video Glitches10:34 - Easter Eggs and Personality11:20 - Nick AI Chatbot Feature13:42 - Guardrails and Persona Prompts14:52 - Voice and Nick Vibes File15:34 - Biggest Challenge and Wrap Up----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ℹ️ 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭'𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭?Welcome to "Secrets of the Viz", where I dive deep into the amazing vizzes in #TableauPublic and other #DataVisualization tools. Have you ever wondered how these stunning visualizations come to life? I'll be peeling back the layers with the authors themselves as they share their inspirations, design processes and unique techniques. Join me as we explore, learn, and get inspired together.Don't forget to subscribe, follow for more tips and check out the full playlisthttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVkjBKxQASMmwlAE89dt97IMSFqTpGldh----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------🤝 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐍𝐢𝐜𝐤▶ https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicklimzf/#datavisualization #design #infographic #vibecoding #claudefable #claudedesign #portfolio #portfoliodesign #informationdesign

In this episode of Secrets of the Viz, Ann, the current Iron Viz Champion, unpacks how she built her books visualization and delivered her on-stage story. Sheshares how her teaching background helped her practice and refine a “once upon a time” narrative with a Mad Libs-style twist, and why she focused on genre mashups from a dataset with many rows but few features. She explains the major data cleaning work of mapping thousands of messy Goodreads genres into 17 groups using Tableau, including rules like nulling genres used by fewer than five books. Ann also walks through her hand-drawn, bullet-journal-inspired backgrounds made in Figma and Procreate, plus dynamic zone visibility overlays and custom transparent shapes for a Venn and network chart. She describes cutting ideas due to a three-minute talk limit and optimizing a 50-minute build down to time.https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/ann.pregler/viz/GenreMash-UpMadness-IronViz26/Opener00:29 - Meet the Champion01:44 - Storytelling Origins02:26 - Why Genre Mashups03:52 - Cleaning Thousands of Genres08:13 - Hand Drawn Bullet Journal Look11:09 - Dynamic Overlays and Accordion13:10 - Custom Shapes for Circles15:07 - Cutting the Build to Time17:11 - Wrap Up and What's Next----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ℹ️ 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭'𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭?Welcome to "Secrets of the Viz", where I dive deep into the amazing vizzes in #TableauPublic and other #DataVisualization tools. Have you ever wondered how these stunning visualizations come to life? I'll be peeling back the layers with the authors themselves as they share their inspirations, design processes and unique techniques. Join me as we explore, learn, and get inspired together.Don't forget to subscribe, follow for more tips and check out the full playlisthttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVkjBKxQASMmwlAE89dt97IMSFqTpGldh----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------🤝 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐀𝐧𝐧▶ https://www.linkedin.com/in/ann-pregler-61275922a/▶ https://bsky.app/profile/annpregler.com▶ https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/ann.pregler/vizzes▶ https://annpregler.com/#datavisualization #analytics #design #infographic #books #goodreads #bookgenre #onceuponatime

In this episode of Secrets of the Viz, Brian shares about his Iron Viz performance, focusing on how he built and presented a story in just a few minutes. Brian shares how he found the narrative by exploring a books dataset, noticing that classics could be massively reviewed yet lower rated while fantasy franchises were both highly reviewed and highly rated. They break down his signature left-nav, right-story layout and his step-by-step, one-sheet navigation approach, where each “step” reveals hidden elements. Brian explains how most of the work happened in Tableau Prep through heavy scaffolding and data densification, enabling a clean Tableau build with only a few map layers and smoother animations. He also discusses mark types that animate well, why polygons don’t, and why storytelling and cutting content for a 3–4 minute presentation was the hardest part.https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/brian.moore7221/viz/HogwartsOverHemingwayIronViz2026/HogwartsOverHemingway00:29 - Meet Brian00:52 - Finding the Book Story02:08 - Signature Layout Style03:43 - One Sheet Navigation04:10 - Scaffolding With Prep07:20 - Rebuilding the Flow09:19 - Smoother Animations10:28 - Map Layers Magic11:49 - Limits and Wish List12:36 - Hardest Part Storytelling15:29 - Practice and One Sheet Tip16:40 - Smoke and Mirrors Wrap----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ℹ️ 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭'𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭?Welcome to "Secrets of the Viz", where I dive deep into the amazing vizzes in #TableauPublic and other #DataVisualization tools. Have you ever wondered how these stunning visualizations come to life? I'll be peeling back the layers with the authors themselves as they share their inspirations, design processes and unique techniques. Join me as we explore, learn, and get inspired together.Don't forget to subscribe, follow for more tips and check out the full playlisthttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVkjBKxQASMmwlAE89dt97IMSFqTpGldh----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------🤝 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧▶ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bm111/▶ https://x.com/bmoorewastaken▶ https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/brian.moore7221/vizzes▶ https://domoorewithdata.com/#datavisualization #analytics #design #infographic #books #goodreads #hogwarts #harrypotter #hemingway

In this chaotic behind-the-scenes episode of Secrets of the Viz, we had Kevin on to walk through a sped-up, five-minute rehearsal of building his final Iron Viz entry in Tableau, recorded before TC. Kevin shows how he uses rehearsal-style guidelines, a cheat sheet, and parameters to hide setup marks before presenting, and explains that most of the design is built in Tableau with a dual-axis polygon and text, with only part of the background as an image. They discuss a clever search feature using a pipe string concatenator (e.g., searching “Batman” or “romance”), plus graphic novel recommendations like Diary of a Wimpy Kid, American Born Chinese, and Heartstopper. Kevin breaks down which parts were hardest time-consuming text placement, trial-and-error book visuals, and a heavily customized rank chart and why he avoided doing it all in Figma.https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/kevin.wee/viz/BustingtheMythsAboutReadingGraphicNovelsIronViz2026/Dashboard00:21 - Introduction00:54 - Speedrun Build05:36 - Using Concatenators to Search06:08 - All about Graphic Novles08:22 - The chaos behind the chart designs09:17 - The secret to Kevin's rehearsal10:05 - Toughest challenges----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ℹ️ 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭'𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭?Welcome to "Secrets of the Viz", where I dive deep into the amazing vizzes in #TableauPublic and other #DataVisualization tools. Have you ever wondered how these stunning visualizations come to life? I'll be peeling back the layers with the authors themselves as they share their inspirations, design processes and unique techniques. Join me as we explore, learn, and get inspired together.Don't forget to subscribe, follow for more tips and check out the full playlisthttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVkjBKxQASMmwlAE89dt97IMSFqTpGldh----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------🤝 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐊𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐧▶ https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-wee/▶ https://x.com/KevinWee90▶ https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/kevin.wee/▶ https://kevinwee.com/category/portfolio/#datavisualization #analytics #design #infographic #books #goodreads #graphicnovels #comics #webcomics

In this episode of Secrets of the Viz, Ana Lucia Gonzalez and Prina Shah from The Guardian joins us to share about building a bird migration data visualization. They discuss how a broad pitch became bird “diaries,” the challenge of sourcing and verifying uneven migration datasets across regions, and layering routes with temperature and vegetation data. Prina explains iterative design decisions, especially the landscape-map vs portrait-mobile problem; and moving from a globe concept to cropped flat maps that worked for mobile-first scrollytelling. They cover why animation and timelines suited migration, how smooth motion and faded “tails” were achieved with an interactive journalist, and how radar, GPS trackers, community-sourced bird sounds, and illustrations filled gaps where photos and video were limited, including a featured bird that follows hurricanes.https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2025/oct/16/bird-migration-is-changing-what-does-this-reveal-about-our-planet-visualised-aoe00:00 - Globe or Flat Map00:33 - Meet the Guests01:12 - Project Origins02:11 - Hunting Migration Data04:05 - Mobile Map Design06:33 - Mobile vs Desktop08:22 - Animating the Journey10:52 - Tracking Birds Science12:57 - Illustrations and Audio14:55 - Favorite Birds and Stories17:50 - Wrap Up and Next Projects----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ℹ️ 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭'𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭?Welcome to "Secrets of the Viz", where I dive deep into the amazing vizzes in #TableauPublic and other #DataVisualization tools. Have you ever wondered how these stunning visualizations come to life? I'll be peeling back the layers with the authors themselves as they share their inspirations, design processes and unique techniques. Join me as we explore, learn, and get inspired together.Don't forget to subscribe, follow for more tips and check out the full playlisthttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVkjBKxQASMmwlAE89dt97IMSFqTpGldh----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------🤝 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐀𝐧𝐚▶ https://www.linkedin.com/in/ana-lucia-gonzalez-paz-b800244/▶ https://x.com/anlugonz▶ https://linktr.ee/analuciagonzalez▶ https://bsky.app/profile/anlugonz.bsky.social🤝 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐚▶ https://www.linkedin.com/in/prina-shah-939b94101/▶ https://x.com/PrinaShah2▶ https://bsky.app/profile/prinashah.bsky.social🤝 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐏𝐡𝐨𝐞𝐛𝐞▶ https://www.linkedin.com/in/phoebe-weston-ab156bb4/▶ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHQBxx1w4u5N6jfhP_xakiQ▶ https://x.com/phoeb0🤝 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐀𝐧𝐭𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐨▶ https://www.linkedin.com/in/antoniovoce/#datavisualization #analytics #design #infographic #journalism #newspaper #digitalstories #birds #birdsmigration #ecosystem #birdwatching #migration #nature

In this episode of Secrets of the Viz, Idris shares a deeply personal dashboard about stuttering and how he learned to manage it over time. Idris recounts struggling to speak in primary school, then a turning point in secondary school when classmates pushed him to represent them in a weekly debate, where intense practice helped him win and build confidence. He emphasizes the importance of patient friends and family, not interrupting people who stutter, and improving through teaching and repetition.https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/akilapa.idris5302/vizzes00:00 - Stuttering Reality Check00:34 - Meet Idris and the Viz01:13 - Inspiration and Finding Data02:15 - Building the Grid Chart03:26 - Dashboard Story Setup03:40 - School Years and Silence04:54 - Costs and Social Impact05:42 - The Friday Debate Breakthrough08:49 - Support Systems That Help09:14 - Advice and Practice Tips11:19 - Celebrities and Preparation12:17 - Using AI and Tableau Tricks----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ℹ️ 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭'𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭?Welcome to "Secrets of the Viz", where I dive deep into the amazing vizzes in #TableauPublic and other #DataVisualization tools. Have you ever wondered how these stunning visualizations come to life? I'll be peeling back the layers with the authors themselves as they share their inspirations, design processes and unique techniques. Join me as we explore, learn, and get inspired together.Don't forget to subscribe, follow for more tips and check out the full playlisthttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVkjBKxQASMmwlAE89dt97IMSFqTpGldh----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------🤝 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐈𝐝𝐫𝐢𝐬▶ https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/akilapa.idris5302/vizzes▶ https://www.linkedin.com/in/idris-akilapa/▶ https://x.com/im_akeelah▶ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8h2eXsUOYujsppwzksQK9g#datavisualization #analytics #design #infographic #journalism #newspaper #digitalstories #stuttering #mentalhealth

Charlene Chua, a data and graphics journalist at The Straits Times, talks about her team’s “Modern Dating” visual story and why dating can feel harder despite apps and technology. They discuss Singapore-specific pressures like the BTO housing scheme and family expectations, and how the team anonymous interviews, expert perspectives, and illustrations to humanize the data. Charlene shares how they storyboarded in Figma, evaluated different visual story structures (inverted pyramid, martini glass, diamond), and iterated on key design ideas like the HDB window metaphor, a starry-night palette, and a hopeful “soulmate” ending. She also highlights challenges of compressing a complex, human topic into a concise story under a tight three-to-four-week deadline.https://www.straitstimes.com/multimedia/graphics/2026/04/modern-dating-singapore/index.html00:00 - Why Love Feels Unlearned00:23 - Meet Charlene And The Viz01:14 - Dating Apps Spark The Idea02:13 - Singapore Pressures BTO Family03:29 - Survey Data And Human Stories05:45 - App Archetypes And Communication07:48 - Media Expectations And Reality08:47 - Visual Metaphors And Storyboarding10:06 - Story Structures For Visuals12:55 - Pillars And Interactive Concepts15:25 - From Inspirations To Final Build17:15 - Colors Windows And Soulmates20:10 - Biggest Challenges And Wrap Up----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ℹ️ 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭'𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭?Welcome to "Secrets of the Viz", where I dive deep into the amazing vizzes in #TableauPublic and other #DataVisualization tools. Have you ever wondered how these stunning visualizations come to life? I'll be peeling back the layers with the authors themselves as they share their inspirations, design processes and unique techniques. Join me as we explore, learn, and get inspired together.Don't forget to subscribe, follow for more tips and check out the full playlisthttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVkjBKxQASMmwlAE89dt97IMSFqTpGldh----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------🤝 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐞▶ https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlenechuaxinzi/▶ https://www.straitstimes.com/#datavisualization #analytics #design #infographic #journalism #newspaper #digitalstories

Martina and Stefan joins us this week to talk about about a commissioned project for the Luxembourg's Museum of Art & History that helps teams explore museum collections through an internal visualization platform. They discuss how museum data is shaped by decades of manual record-keeping, inconsistencies, and missing fields, and why highlighting gaps can drive better digitization and decision-making. The pair describe how they met, how they collaborated with a proactive data-scientist client, and how they used surveys, case studies, museum visits, and brand exploration to shape the tool. Style Guidehttps://www.behance.net/gallery/244239007/Museum-Collections-ExplorerDemohttps://vimeo.com/1164475216?share=copy&fl=sv&fe=ci00:28 - Meet the Guests01:27 - From Neuroscience to Dataviz01:57 - How They Teamed Up03:31 - Project Kickoff and Goals05:21 - Client Collaboration and Surveys06:28 - Scale of Museum Collections07:22 - Design Iterations and Branding09:32 - Four Lenses for Exploration10:48 - Visualizing Missing Data13:27 - Flipping the Narrative UX15:14 - Timeline and Visitor Potential17:29 - Guiding Decisions with Insights18:36 - Biggest Challenges and Tradeoffs21:32 - What’s Next and Wrap Up----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ℹ️ 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭'𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭?Welcome to "Secrets of the Viz", where I dive deep into the amazing vizzes in #TableauPublic and other #DataVisualization tools. Have you ever wondered how these stunning visualizations come to life? I'll be peeling back the layers with the authors themselves as they share their inspirations, design processes and unique techniques. Join me as we explore, learn, and get inspired together.Don't forget to subscribe, follow for more tips and check out the full playlisthttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVkjBKxQASMmwlAE89dt97IMSFqTpGldh----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------🤝 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐚▶ https://www.linkedin.com/in/martinazunica/▶ https://linktr.ee/martinazunica▶ https://www.behance.net/martinazunica_🤝 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐒𝐭𝐞𝐟𝐚𝐧▶ https://www.linkedin.com/in/stefan-pullen/▶ https://www.stefanpullen.com/#tableau #datavisualization #analytics #design #tableau #infographic #dashboard #uxui #museum

Take a moment and think back to the first time you remember food in-game. This week, Matt Huff drops in as a host to dig into my #IronViz entry that explores how food in video games is shown historically from 1970 to 2025 and how it has evolved over the years.https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/louisyu/viz/PlayingwithFoodIronViz/Evolution----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ℹ️ 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭'𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭?Welcome to "Secrets of the Viz", where I dive deep into the amazing vizzes in #TableauPublic and other #DataVisualization tools. Have you ever wondered how these stunning visualizations come to life? I'll be peeling back the layers with the authors themselves as they share their inspirations, design processes and unique techniques. Join me as we explore, learn, and get inspired together.Don't forget to subscribe, follow for more tips and check out the full playlisthttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVkjBKxQASMmwlAE89dt97IMSFqTpGldh----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------🤝 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐌𝐚𝐭𝐭▶ https://www.linkedin.com/in/mhuff04/▶ https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/matt.huff/vizzes▶ https://x.com/matt_huff_photo▶ https://medium.com/%40matt_huff▶ https://usergroups.tableau.com/retail-and-consumer-goods-tableau-user-group/🤝 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐋𝐨𝐮𝐢𝐬▶ https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/louisyu/vizzes▶ https://www.linkedin.com/in/yulouis/▶ https://x.com/datavizlouis▶ https://datavizlouis.webflow.io/#tableau #datavisualization #analytics #design #tableau #infographic #dashboard #uxui #videogames #ironviz #finalfantasy15 #pacman #retrogaming #arcade #gamesnightviz #ironviz

Ever struggled with finding your favorite topics from the #datafam? Thanks to Chris McClellan, these are all in the Team Datafam channel (https://www.youtube.com/@TeamDataFam). and to take it a step further, Jacob created a dashboard to explore and search with better precision. Learn about all his techniques and cool tricks to make an awesome user experience.https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/jacob.rothemund/viz/TableauUserGroupVirtualRecordingsExplorer/Dashboard00:29 - Meet Jacob and the Project02:08 - Idea and Data Scraping Setup04:30 - Vibe Coding and Refresh Strategy06:39 - Dashboard Wireframe and Goals08:14 - Search and Multi Term Filters11:11 - Smart Pagination Controls14:01 - Map Layer Layout and Text Wrap15:58 - Container Tricks for UX----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ℹ️ 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭'𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭?Welcome to "Secrets of the Viz", where I dive deep into the amazing vizzes in #TableauPublic and other #DataVisualization tools. Have you ever wondered how these stunning visualizations come to life? I'll be peeling back the layers with the authors themselves as they share their inspirations, design processes and unique techniques. Join me as we explore, learn, and get inspired together.Don't forget to subscribe, follow for more tips and check out the full playlisthttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVkjBKxQASMmwlAE89dt97IMSFqTpGldh----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------🤝 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐉𝐚𝐜𝐨𝐛 𝐑𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐝▶ https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/jacob.rothemund/vizzes▶ https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacobrothemund/▶ https://x.com/jacro28▶ https://datavizdiary.com/🤝 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐂𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐬 𝐌𝐜𝐂𝐥𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐧▶ https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/chris.mcclellan/vizze▶ https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-mcclellan-au/▶ https://x.com/cmcau🔗 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐜𝐞𝐬▶ https://www.youtube.com/@TeamDataFam▶ https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL791If_OqsdiM2_lwFzQ0Gj5m1PbkP7wu▶ https://www.linkedin.com/company/vizit-anz/#tableau #datavisualization #analytics #design #tableau #infographic #dashboard #uxui #tableauusergroups #TUG