Case Exercises
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Like many digital service companies today, Spotify, a music streaming platform, routinely tracks user consumption of content on its app and website. Spotify can use this data to spot music trends, improve recommendations, and drive consumer engagement with its product. Using the Top Hits Spotify from 2000–2019 dataset from Kaggle, import the data for top song hits into Access. Design some simple queries that will allow you to examine the data more closely in this database. Do you see any patterns from your cursory review? For example, are there specific genres that tend to have higher popularity, or are there some artists that have multiple top hits? How might more advanced analysis of a database like this be useful for a company like Spotify?
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One use for forms in Access is to create an interface that makes it easier for casual users to interact with and find information from your database. Serving a similar function is Google Trends which is an interface that enables Google users to explore data that the company has collected based on its database of historical search trends. Try searching for a specific term, such as “World Cup,” and look over the results. Note that the results are conveniently displayed in several graphical images, such as search term interest over time. You can also download a CSV file containing the data that is presented to you. Download and open the “interest over time” data for the term that you searched. Which format do you think is easiest for a casual user to interpret? How might including images and other graphics help improve Access forms?