An app that shows changes in life expectancy from multiple perspectives, with a focus on countries.
Idea & approach
The provided dataset contains life expectancy at birth for the period 1960–2023, covering 215 countries.
The central question associated with the dataset is “In which country has life expectancy at birth changed the most?”
The phrase “changed the most” is ambiguous and open to multiple interpretations. To clarify this, I posed the following question to ChatGPT (with ChatGPT having prior knowledge of the dataset structure and context):
“If this is the question: In which country has ‘life expectancy at birth’ changed the most? What are possible ways to interpret this question, and how can the results be visualized?”
The response outlined five different interpretations of “change,” including:
- how each interpretation can be calculated, and
- recommendations on how best to visualize each interpretation.
Result
The left side of the app allows users to select a top 10 of countries based on different analytical perspectives. Below the selection options, a brief explanation clarifies what each perspective represents and how it should be interpreted.
The right side displays a scatter plot showing the average life expectancy of a country plotted against its stability—indicating whether changes in life expectancy are relatively stable over time or fluctuate significantly, for example as a result of wars or other disruptions.
When a country is selected, it is highlighted in the scatter plot, making it easy to identify and compare its position.
Figure Friday is an initiative by the Dash/Plotly community in which participants receive a dataset every Friday and create a visualization or small app to uncover insights from the data. The following Friday at 6:00 PM, there’s a Zoom session where some participants explain what they built and why. In the related community thread, the code is also shared — along with demos when possible — so members can learn from each other.