Let’s Build: A Listener’s Guide

Written By Emily De Padua

👋🏽 Introduction

One of my favorite features from my Iron Viz Entry, “Color Studies,” was the Listener’s Guide. This feature pushed me way out of my comfort zone, and is something I hope to fine tune in future vizzes. While I plan to write a separate series on the entire design process for creating Color Studies, this post is a specific deep dive on the making of the Listener’s Guide. This is a feature I can see many use cases for and look forward to discussing.

The materials you’ll need to follow along with this post is my 2022 Iron Viz Entry, “Color Studies,” as I will be referencing related parts of this viz extensively in this post. Ultimately, I hope to give you

  • An inside look on developing the concept of the Listener’s Guide

  • Why I made the Listener’s Guide

  • The tools I used to create it

  • How I created mine

  • Things I learned

  • What I hope to do for future guides

Let’s dive in, yeah?

💡 The Development

I’m really proud of how the Listener’s Guide turned out. It was not in my original design and nowhere near my mind until the idea was planted in my head during the Iron Viz Feedback Initiative by Sarah Bartlett (read recap). First off, I loved participating in this initiative, and I was thrilled to pick the brains of Brian Moore, Pradeep Kumar G, and Emily Kund in my first session. I found the initiative so helpful that I signed up for a second session, which was hosted by Sarah Bartlett and Michelle Frayman.

Here were the series of events & shared moments that lead to The Listener’s Guide:

  • I kept sharing anecdotal details about my relationship with Chelsea Pineda, the photographer. When I first shared my viz with Brian, Pradeep, and Emily, I didn’t right away call out in the viz’s introduction that Chelsea and I are childhood friends. As I walked through the viz, I found myself throwing in details such as how long Chelsea and I have been friends (15+ years), how we met (a Minor League baseball game in middle school), and that I’ve even been her photography guinea pig through the years (nearly all of the photos of me on this website are photos taken by Chelsea Pineda).

  • “It’s more fun hearing you talk about your best friend.” I was struggling with writing the text in my viz with questions such as, “Do I compromise the validity of my analysis by openly sharing that this was the work of my dearest and oldest childhood friend?” and “Was it socially okay to make this such a personal viz?” This hesitation to be open about my connection to Chelsea was a storytelling indecision impacting all parts of my viz. I voiced this issue in my first session, and I really appreciated the group encouraging me to be open about my connection to Chelsea as an artist and as my best friend. This connection brought a special life to my narrative. By this point, Emily Kund had brought up the idea of an audio guide as we talked about screen reader text and incorporating accessibility features in my viz. I first hesitated at the idea of an audio guide due to an insecurity on the sound of my voice and the way I talk (a recurring deep insecurity of mine). I cherish that Emily Kund soothed that insecurity with the perspective that it’s way more fun for the audience to hear me talk about my best friend, voice and all.

  • Sarah Bartlett suggested a video with time stamps on Youtube. Off I went to the drawing board, I was back to building and re-building on Tableau Public! My second feedback session was with Sarah Bartlett and Michelle Frayman, which was so exciting because it was our first time on a Zoom together after being Twitter mutuals for ages. Making internet friends is fun! As I walked through the viz, I had created placeholder files to mock up the end user experience for the Listener’s Guide. The thing about the Listener’s Guide is that you cannot create the actual guide until after your viz is completely done. It was important for me to test the process with several placeholder files in this feedback session. While I was demoing it for Sarah and Michelle, Sarah brought up time stamps and potentially doing this as a video, citing her Iron Quest videos as an example (link). I immediately liked the idea, but was I going to do it?

  • Dzifa Amexo sent me a video live react to my viz. I was still iffy about Sarah’s suggestion on a video guide because, admittedly, I’ve never done any extensive video or audio editing. I didn’t rule it out though. I just wasn’t sure if I could feasibly pull it off with the time I had left. After my second session, I started sending my Viz out to Tableau friends that I felt comfortable asking for feedback so late in the competition window. Dzifa had seen an excerpt of my Viz, and I immediately knew I wanted to just send her a link—no description, no explanation, no directions. I wanted to know what someone looking at this Viz for the very first time was experiencing without my guidance. Dzifa sent me an 8 minute video react, walking through all her thoughts, feedback, and reflection, which I loved. Those videos finally convinced me that I had to make a Video Guide, because I finally understood how valuable it was to have both sight and sound together.

🤔 Why did I make it?

  • Accessibility matters. During my feedback session, I walked away wanting to design a user experience for anyone using screen readers. Admittedly, my personal knowledge expertise on accessibility in tech could be more, and I’m a huge fan of Emily Kund’s work (highlights: Her TC21 Talk, Her Blog, and this Interview with Emily by CJ Mayes), but I was struck by the discomforting realization that there were audiences that may want to experience my viz, and I unknowingly designed a system that kept this audience out. While uncomfortable in the moment, this discomfort is a good thing. It meant I realized I had a design flaw, I wanted to fix it, and that I needed to try something new. My favorite quote of Emily Kund’s is, “This data accessibility journey isn’t just for others. It’s for me too.”

  • It made writing the textual narrative in the viz easier. I didn’t want my anecdotal details about Chelsea to get lost just because they didn’t necessarily have a space in the printed viz design. As I saw during my feedback sessions, even when I tried to keep these details out of the viz, they would just pour out anyway. These details were narratively important, I just needed to find a different avenue to house them in the viz. Knowing that I didn’t have to “reject” these anecdotal details made it easier for me to be narratively decisive. I was able to categorize details and narrative choices as either, “This is for the Written Text” or “Include in the voiceover.”

  • Audience connection. It wasn’t just my personal belief that these details were important, because this notion was reinforced when the viz was presented for feedback. When I didn’t call it out, I would get questions such as, “How do you know Chelsea Pineda? How do you know understand her growth?” In hindsight, my connection to Chelsea Pineda as an artist and as a friend was a foundational pillar to the storytelling of Color Studies. I didn’t quite understand it at the time, because a part of me thought it would be more professional to keep that vulnerability hidden. But something that I’ve come to cherish in the making of Color Studies is that public vulnerability and a loving celebration of friendship is a narrative superpower.

  • It made sense, design-wise. As I went to the drawing board with the initial idea from my first feedback session, I realized there was a real-life, tangible, experience that I could draw inspiration from—Museums. One of my design goals for Color Studies was to show off Chelsea’s work, and what better way than to mimic a core Museum experience? Museums have guided tours with docents, or provide individual go at your own pace guided tours using headphones. If my viz is a gallery celebrating Chelsea’s concert photography work, then mimicking a core Museum experience felt appropriate.

  • I wanted to be brave. After my first session, I knew that I wanted to do a Listener’s Guide. I knew I wanted to figure out how to build one, because this feature scared me—it was an opportunity to be brave. I’m not sure if my insecurities over the sound of my voice or the way I talk will ever really go away, but I can learn to get comfortable with it. And letting people hear my voice and the way I talk is one way.

🛠 Tools I used

🎙 Making The Guide

I will say this over and over and over again—the tricky thing about a Listener’s Guide is that you cannot create the actual guide until after your viz is completely done. However, that does not mean you have to leave everything related to the Listener’s Guide to the end, especially if you’re on a deadline for Iron Viz. You can test your process for creating files, the design, etc before the viz is complete. I was also lucky because I had a general idea on how to approach building this from Emily Kund, who gave me the tip to host the Listener’s Guide on a Google Drive.

Before your viz is done

  1. Record your test audio using Audacity. Convert the audio to an .mp3 file.

    Note: My original plan was to make an audio-only Listener’s Guide, but this prep work can also work with Zoom.

  2. Upload your file onto a Google Drive, which will host your files. (Example, some underrated fun, I love a jingle)

  3. Download the Google Chrome Extension for QR Code Generators or go to a QR Generator site (here).

  4. Connect the QR Generator to your Google Drive link hosting your audio files.

  5. Download the QR Code as an image and add it to your Tableau Viz as an Image Object.

    Note: Pay attention to pixel sizing here, because the QR code will not work properly if the image is not the correct sizing. If your QR code image is set to being 100 pixels, it has to be at least 100 pixels on your viz. Do not select “Fit Image” in Image Objects, it will mess up the QR code’s ability to direct you to the link.

  6. Add a Play Button as an Image Object, which I put next to the QR code. I got my image from Noun Project. Link this Image Object to your Google Drive link.

  7. Add an Audio Wave as an Image Object, which communicates to your audience the length of your Listener’s Guide. To create the Audio Wave, upload a copy of your audio file to WaveVisual. Similar to step 6, add the WaveVisual image as an Image Object in Tableau and link it to your Google Drive link.

    Note: Steps 6 and 7 were added because there are multiple ways an end user may want to access the Listener’s Guide. This design allowed users to choose between listening to the guide on a separate QR scanning device (step 6) or listen on the same device being used to view Color Studies (step 7).

  8. Test your end user experience.

    Note: I almost try to break my user experience to catch bugs. Does the QR code send me to the correct link? Is my phone having issues scanning the code? Is it rendering correctly on Tableau public? Are any of my links broken or incorrect? Working out any build issues before the viz is complete can be very helpful.


Things I wish I had done in hindsight:

  • Test uploading anything to Youtube. Create a Youtube Account, verify the account, test uploading things to Youtube. Honestly, anything Youtube related. Again, because my initial test process was an audio only approach, I would not think to test anything on Youtube. If you are planning to recreate this Listener’s Guide for your own purpose and plan to do a video approach, I highly suggest using this time to test anything Youtube related.

  • Verify your Youtube Account. Originally, for a video recording, I wanted to host it on Youtube like Sarah had done for her Iron Quest videos, but I ran into an issue in the upload process. Unverified Youtube accounts can only post videos less than 15 minutes long, and mine was over that mark, and I didn’t have enough time to fix the issue. So, I went the Google Doc route!

After your viz is done

Thank goodness I did that prep work and figured out my process, because looking at that tweet’s time stamp—I didn’t get to officially start the actual Listener’s Guide until February 7 @ 1AM EST, just about less than 24 hours before the deadline! 😱

You are going to repeat all the steps covered in ‘Before your viz is done,’ but it’ll be much easier because all you need to do is swap out links or files for the one to be published. If you’re short on time (like I was 😅), this was very helpful and made all of that process testing worthwhile. By this point, I realized the Listener’s Guide was going to be a video recording, which only slightly changed my process up.

I did find myself regularly running through the following checklist for my Zoom recordings:

  1. Is your camera off?

  2. Are you screen sharing your viz on Tableau Public?

  3. Are you recording?

After several attempts, I finally got a full take over my Listener’s Guide. While my Youtube hosting plans fell through, this was also the point where I realized I could just put the time stamps in the viz itself. So it all worked out!

Things I wish I had done in hindsight:

  • Have a script. I was pretty frazzled when it was recording time because finishing my viz took longer than I initially planned and I didn’t get to start until 1am. I was trying to rush through as much as I can, and originally planned to just wing the audio part. I don’t recommend that route, but it did help me realize that I definitely had to read out loud any of the key narrative text sections. In hindsight, I wish I had taken a moment to get reorganized and work on a script that at least guided me on what section I was covering and what details I was going to add on.

  • Have more than 1 take. I only had 1 full take of my Listener’s Guide and it was done at 4AM (seriously). I severely underestimated how hard it is to do anything in one single take, and my appreciation for single long takes in movies is now immense. I did try, after getting some sleep and before my work day started, to record a second backup take, with no success. Color Studies decided I was only going to have 1 useable take, and so, I only had one useable take!

  • Try video and audio editing so you don’t have to do everything in 1 single take. I’m not an audio or video editor by any means, and this is well outside my wheelhouse. But in hindsight, having that skill would have made things way more easier.

What I’ve Learned & Moving Forward

Ultimately, this feature was as challenging as it was rewarding, and something I hope to incorporate again in my own future vizzes. I do not regret the time and effort spent on this feature, even when plans didn’t go the way I wanted or when I had to pivot at the last minute or when I was cranky and recording at 4AM EST. I’m personally really proud of the challenge to innovate with accessibility.

After my Iron Viz submission, I was really touched by audiences’ appreciation for the Listener’s Guide. A fear of mine was that the Listener’s Guide was going to be an afterthought in experiencing the viz, and I was thrilled to learn that it only enhanced the end user experience. My favorite learning was showing this to my friends in non-Data fields and hearing their reactions. I heard words like, “it’s so comforting to hear this viz in your voice” and “this is so cool!” and (when I showed a friend my placeholder jingle file along with my viz) “you’re still using your Music Degree!”

Something that I’ve learned from this inclusive innovation opportunity like The Listener’s Guide is that solving for accessibility is a benefit for everyone. From fellow data viz developers saying how much they loved this idea to more talks about incorporating accessibility in our Tableau vizzes, I also think of my non-Data field friends who were able to truly experience Color Studies from The Listener’s Guide—while they maybe would not have immediately understood my viz’s design or information, having the Listener’s Guide opened the experience up for them in an understandable manner. In future vizzes, I hope to fine tune my process and continue more opportunities to innovate around accessibility. There is no such thing as a perfect viz. I do not believe Color Studies is a perfect viz. In time, with different eyes and more knowledge, I will look at Color Studies and see design flaws and opportunities, especially in accessibility. I think I could have done more, and I hope for more opportunities to prove myself that I can.

Long story short, thank you to everyone who appreciated the Listener’s Guide and asked me how I made—you are the reason I wrote this blog post. I hope you’ve learned from this blog, and I cannot wait to see other Listener’s Guides in the viz community! I’m cheering for you.

Emily De Padua
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