16 weeks of training and here we are!
9 am this morning I eagerly read what Jenny had in store for us, and it was a shopping price comparison tool that used the ONS historic retail data.
Straight off the bat, I started planning out a schedule of what I needed to get done, which I have simplified to 10 steps.
1. Read the requirements
2. Begin data exploration to understand the fields I'm working with
3. start to plan out what data preparation and cleansing would need to be completed
4. start to conceptualise what line of analysis I could take with this data, and build a dashboard plan
5. talk through my thoughts and ideas with someone else, so I can deepen my analysis before I begin
6. Begin data preparation using Tableau Prep
7. Use this output in Tableau and build some base charts to start getting an idea of trends and patterns
8. reiterate my plan, which meant finding supplement data and preparing that too in Tableau Prep
9. Build extra charts for my analysis
10. Formatting and implementing best visualisation practices so it was clear for presenting
I realised I had a lot ahead of me, and knew I would be an hour or so behind as I had a meeting during the day. So, I decided to prioritise getting the requirements completed (such as this blog heh) so I had a minimal viable product. Additionally, I decided that I would rather try and explain my charts and ensure the analysis was clear as opposed to formatting heavily.
All in all, by the end of the day I produced this dashboard [link] which explored how food prices have changed in the UK and how there is variance in the different food groups. More expensive foods showed bigger fluctuations than the essential everyday foods that stayed closer to the average price. Moreover, I explored how the volume of retail consumption changed during this period of the cost of living crisis, and there are distinct trends in price elasticity of demand from the periods before and during. This suggests that consumer behaviour drastically altered due to inflation. To deepen my analysis I would supplement this dashboard to explore how this shift compares to the revenue of businesses in the UK retail sector.