Module # 5 Part to Whole and Ranking Analysis

 

Part to Whole and Ranking Analysis with Plot.ly

1) This week I learned about ranking analysis, deviation and Plot.ly. The main focus of this week is about a website called Plot.ly. It seems to be a very powerful tool that can create a variety of different maps, charts and graphics of all types. Much much more than tableau can, but the only limitation i can see so far is that it cannot handle data in the millions. Besides that it looks to be very flexible with it being able to be edited with some python code, and it even accepts SQL inputs to edit and retrieve data. This is so far the best tool I have seen for handling data, including pgAdmin. That being said time to get to data that I have been given.

2) The data I have been given this week has only 20 entries with only two columns. The first being called "Average Position" and the other being called "Time". With only these two columns we are going to have to create a time series of some sort.  I have no other context for what the data represents so I am going to create a story for it right now to then create a appropriate visual for it. The column "Average Position" implies that this is an average from a group. We could interpret this as the average position for a group of things to be a certain distance from a starting position. This group could also be an average of a single test subject over multiple trials. The "Time" column is simply a measurement of the time at 20 different intervals. Those intervals being 0.2 of a whole unit. Given all of this I am going to interpret this data as the average distance Bob makes it through the Florida everglades at night on a specific path with no light, and the time being measured, is in hours. Bob is also launched out of a small cannon and upon landing is recorded at time 0 which is why he has made progress at time 0. 




3) Based on the graph above, we can see that it takes Bob quite a bit of time to get through the Everglades at night with no light. It takes him about three and a half hours to reach just a mile. Trudging through chest high swamp at night must be pretty tough. We can see him making steady progress from the 0.5 hour mark to about the 2.75 hour mark where Bob then just gets too tired and his progress starts to plateau. From this data we can see that it takes a seasoned Bob about 3.5 hours to go 1 mile in the everglades at night with no light, given that he is launched out of a canon at the beginning to get a 0.17 mile head start. Bob does not do well in this field.  

4) I had a bunch of fun with assignment exploring Plot.ly, what it can and can't do and how easy it all was. Being compatible with SQL and python, will only help it to scale up in the future. I look forward to eventually using it again to show other graphs, maybe even some that are 3D. With the data I was given and amount of creativity I have, I was only able to justify creating a basic line graphic. Hopefully in the future I can find a way to tap into more of Plot.ly's potential. 





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