To kick off our first dashboard in Dashboard Week, DSAU27 starts off strong looking at a database covering expeditions to the Himalayan Mountains. This database has four tables, one which focuses on the expeditions themselves, one for the mountains (named peaks), another for the people who climbed them (members), and finally, a table for journals made about expeditions/mountains.
This dataset is quite dense but very interesting once you dive into it, with an expedition linking all tables:
This allows for very easy filtering off the data to very granular and specific details that works dynamically throughout the dashboard. Within the Peaks, if they have ever been fully climbed is listed. I thought it would be interesting to compare details on climbed and unclimbed expeditions, guiding the focus for my dashboard.
I start off with an explanation of the data I’m working with, as I assume most people haven’t seen this dataset before:
I found it quite difficult to figure out how to add the information icons as interactive icons which display text boxes upon clicking it. It was a fun challenge though, and now a good skill I can easily add to future dashboards I make.
I then introduce the overall style of my dashboard with a central divide for climbed and unclimbed peaks. I find this allows for a easy comparison between the two groups, as that represents the central idea for my dashboard.
With my dashboard, I have attempted to answer the question of why exactly unclimbed mountains remain unfinished: highlighting mostly on the details of the expeditions to see if there are any particular reasons they are unable to complete their climb.
Looking at the listed reason by the expeditions members themselves, I finish my first dashboard off with a bar chart coloured based on if the reason was the members fault, or if the reason they had to stop was out of their control:
Finishing my first dashboard then suggests to the user to navigate towards the arrow in the top right, bringing them to my second dashboard going into the specifics of the expeditions:
This provides an aggregated look over the course of the total database, but I also thought it could be meaningful to add a look at the numbers over time to see if any trends are forming (e.g. more accidents are happening in recent years), so I’ve added a parameter to flip over to that:
This dashboard provides some interesting details when comparing the two groups which I won’t go into here to try and keep this blog somewhat brief.
Thanks for reading, if you would like to check out my dashboard feel free to check it out here.