Extras

15. Bonus: Craft a story using storytelling principles

This is advanced-level data communication stuff. Not all analytics challenge prompts lend themselves easily for this type of dashboard, but it is very worth it if you can swing it.

Think about how an exciting movie or book is set up. It has a beginning (plot and source of tension), middle (twists), and end (takeaway or call to action).

Likewise, your analytics prompt can serve as a source of storytelling tension (e.g. “A new protocol was launched with high expectations and price but experienced difficulties and token crash”),

your analysis points be the journey (“While one issue was resolved soon after launch, a new problem crept up and the protocol is having mixed success solving it. These ongoing issues coincide with the price freefall of the protocol’s token, and the price is falling even faster during the onset of the second issue”),

and your takeaway (e.g. “Looking at the data up until now, the protocol has had a far from successful launch. It may be that resolving the issues will see the price restored in the future, but this is not guaranteed due to loss of interest and trust in the crucial post-launch period”).

Alternatively, you might lead with the ending (Knaflic, p. 177). Start with what you found and why it matters, and then reconstruct the data evidence.

Using storytelling structures can keep the audience at the edge of their seats, reading to find out how (or if) the tension from the plot will be resolved!

16. Optional: Explore visualization tools

You can build a dashboard with a tool belonging to a blockchain data provider like Flipside or Dune – or use a visualization library in one of the popular programming languages. Here are some options:

• Tableau

• Python

  • Streamlit

  • Altair

  • Plotly

  • Seaborn

  • And more

• R

  • Shiny

  • ggplot2

  • Plotly

  • And more

• JavaScript

  • D3.js

  • Charts.js

  • And more

Data sources: To get data that you can feed into a third-party visualization tool, you can either use an API or download query results if the data provider and/or your account level allows. One useful resource is Flipside Crypto, which allows both downloading query results, and open access to the API via an SDK (ShroomDK – requires an API key that you can mint for free, only paying gas).

Do you want in-depth tutorials on any of these? Let us know in Discord!