Description:

This is a dashboard using Gallup Poll data regarding life evaluation. More specifics on data metrics and analytics can be found on the World Happiness Report (reference on the bottom of the dashboard). Looker Studio was used to connect to the data via a spreadsheet and charts were created with 2015-2019 data.

Background:

This is data that has been collected since 2012 to present. Specific data visualizations with country breakdown can be found at WHR Dashboard. I wanted to showcase some simple capabilities with Looker Studio and provide more interactivity to looking at trends and distributions without adding too much complexity with statistical methodologies. Thus, dimensional analysis was not used in this dashboard. I may consider this in the future via a different software. Gallop’s poll data collects survey research from over 140 countries and their survey methods in life evaluation differ in that they don’t collect numerous metrics to composite. They try to gauge happiness via a single question, “Please imagine a ladder with steps numbered from 0 at the bottom to 10 at the top. The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life for you. On which step of the ladder would you say you personally feel you stand at this time?”¹

Dashboard Info:

Unfortunately, Looker Studio via Web was giving me some issues with responsiveness. I tested functionality, made a simple calculated field, and tried parameterizing certain fields. The out-of-box features are pretty good and intuitive. The dashboard itself turned out pretty well. If I were to continue this project, I’d probably add in more data for different countries to explore their happiness score in correlation to that data. For example, natural disasters, tourism, demographics, etc. The happiness score is explained by different factors that the Gallup survey collects information on to provide rationale for the respective score. Please check out the World Happiness Report (WHR) dashboard if you’re interested in this. Each specific country page for the score (via selecting a country and navigating to the page) provides the percentage breakdowns.

Interactivity:

1). There’s filters on the upper left-hand side that changes the years and regions selected. Each filter is set to all by default. You can select one or multiple options.

2).  For the histogram, the bins at the bottom are given labels which indicate the range for those bins. So if you were to choose, “North America ONLY” you have three bins. The first [-inf, 6.9) means any value including negative infinity and below 6.9. The [6.9, 7.2) means any value including 6.9 but not up until 7.2. Lastly, [7.2, 7.5] means any value inclusive of 7.2 to including 7.5. Note: [#, #] means inclusion of the start and endpoint values. While (#, #) mean exclusion of the start and endpoints. Combine them however you’d like and that’s the notation for respective start and end values. For example (0, 6] is, “1-2-3-4-5-6.”

3). The line chart at the bottom shows countries’ happiness scores respective to the region(s) that is selected from the filter. Only seven countries are shown at once. Therefore, nuanced filtering can be accomplished by using the context country filter above the line chart for customization.

Revision History:

V1.0 – Initial release
V1.1 – Moved country filter to prevent clipping from below, minor tweaks to chart colors, fixed post – Current: 2.7.2026

References

[1] WHR. Frequently Asked Questions: How is the global ranking produced? World Happiness Report. 2025. Accessed February 3, 2026. https://www.worldhappiness.report/faq/