DATA VISUALIZATION

WITH

PRINCIPLES & PRACTICE

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HELLO!
I am Elijah Appiah from
Ghana.
I am an Economist by
profession.
I love everything data, so I
love R!
You can reach me:
secret behind the smile! [email protected]
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Lesson Goals
Provide compact introduction to
allow readers learn about
visualization techniques.

Emphasize the strong connections

between visualizations and insight.
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Datasets

mtcars: base R
wage1: wooldridge package
diamonds: ggplot2 package
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Variables
Categorical Numeric
Nominal – names, labels, Discrete – counts
categories with no natural e.g. number of
order cylinders of a vehicle
e.g. gender, countries
Ordinal – categories with Continuous – measured
an order even within an interval
e.g. Likert Scales e.g. height, weight
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Variables (e.m)
Discrete – represents counts
e.g. number of students, grade levels, gender,
number of blue marbles in a jar, etc.
Continuous – represents measurable
amounts
e.g. height, weight, temperature, distance, etc.
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GGPLOT2
GRAMMAR OF GRAPHICS PLOTS
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GGPLOT2 LAYERS

Dataset to be Visual elements Data representations Plot appearance

visualized for the data to aid understanding (all non-data ink)

DATA AESTHETICS GEOMETRIES FACETS STATISTICS COORDINATES THEMES

Scales onto Create multiple The space on

which data is plots which data is
mapped plotted
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GGPLOT2 LAYERS

Dataset to be Visual elements

visualized for the data

DATA AESTHETICS GEOMETRIES

Scales onto
which data is
mapped
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GGPLOT2
The package is

ggplot2
The function is

ggplot()
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Layer: DATA
ggplot(data = df)

Blank canvas with

grey background
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Layer: AESTHETICS
The aesthetic attributes include:
x, y, colour (or color), shape, size, fill, alpha,
etc…
Aesthetics are mapped in the aes() function in the
ggplot() function.
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Layer: AESTHETICS
ggplot(data = df, mapping = aes())

Aesthetic
attributes
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Layer: AESTHETICS
ggplot(data = df, aes())

Aesthetic
attributes
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Layer: AESTHETICS
ggplot(df, aes())

Aesthetic
attributes
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Layer: AESTHETICS
ggplot(mtcars, aes(x = mpg))
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Layer: AESTHETICS
ggplot(mtcars, aes(x = mpg, y = hp))
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Layer: GEOMETRIES
The visual elements of plots are defined by geoms.
It is specified as geom_*().
where * denotes the specific type of plot to create.
A bar plot will be geom_bar()
A histogram will be geom_histogram()
A scatter plot will be geom_point()

Don’t worry…….we will be going into details soon……

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Layer: GEOMETRIES
The geometric objects (or geoms) are added (+) to the
ggplot() function.

Example:
ggplot(mtcars, aes(x = mpg)) +
geom_histogram()

ggplot(mtcars, aes(x = mpg, y = hp)) +

geom_point()
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Layer: GEOMETRIES
ggplot(mtcars, aes(x = mpg)) + geom_histogram()
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Layer: GEOMETRIES
ggplot(mtcars, aes(x = mpg, y = hp)) + geom_point()
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Now, let’s practice

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VARIABLES & PLOTS - GEOMS

ONE VARIABLE

Discrete Continuous
Bar Plot – geom_bar() Histogram – geom_histogram()

Density Plot – geom_density()

Dot plot – geom_dot()

Frequency Polygons – geom_freqpoly()

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VARIABLES & PLOTS - GEOMS

geom_bar() – display distribution of discrete variables.

geom_histogram() – bin and count continuous variable, display

with bars.

geom_density() – smoothed density estimate.

geom_dotplot() – stack individual points into a dot plot.

geom_freqpoly() – bin and count continuous variable, display

with lines.
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Now, let’s practice

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VARIABLES & PLOTS - GEOMS

TWO VARIABLES
Both Continuous One Continuous,
One Discrete
Scatter plot – geom_point() Bar plot – geom_col() or
geom_bar(stat=“identity”)
Quantile plot – geom_quantile() Box Plot – geom_boxplot()

Rug plot – geom_rug() Violin plot – geom_violin()

Text labels – geom_text()

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VARIABLES & PLOTS - GEOMS

geom_point() – scatterplot.

geom_quantile() – smoothed quantile regression.

geom_rug() – marginal rug plots.

geom_text() – text labels.

geom_col()/geom_bar(stat=“identity”) – bar chart of

precomputed summaries.

geom_boxplot() – boxplots.

geom_violin() – show density of values in each group.

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Now, let’s practice

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VARIABLES & PLOTS - GEOMS

TWO VARIABLES

At Least One Show Distribution

Discrete (continuous)
Count plot– geom_count() Hexagonal Heatmap – geom_hex()

Jitter plot– geom_jitter() Heatmap – geom_bin2d()

Density plot – geom_density2d()

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VARIABLES & PLOTS - GEOMS

geom_count() – count number of points at distinct locations.

geom_jitter() – randomly jitter overlapping points.

geom_hex() – bin into hexagons and count.

geom_bin2d() – smoothed 2d density estimate.

geom_density2d() – smoothed 2d density estimate.

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Now, let’s practice

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VARIABLES & PLOTS - GEOMS

TWO VARIABLES
One Time, One Display Uncertainty
Continuous
Line plot – geom_line() geom_crossbar()

Area plot – geom_area() geom_errorbar()

Step plot – geom_step() geom_linerange()

geom_pointrange()
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VARIABLES & PLOTS - GEOMS

geom_line() – line plot.

geom_area() – area plot.

geom_step() – step plot.

geom_crossbar() – vertical bar with center.

geom_errorbar() – error bars.

Geom_linerange() – vertical line.

geom_pointrange() – vertical line with center.

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Now, let’s practice

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VARIABLES & PLOTS - GEOMS

TWO VARIABLES
geom_map() – for map data

THREE VARIABLES
geom_contour() – contours.
geom_tile() – tile the plane with rectangles.
geom_raster() – equal sized tiles (fast version of
geom_tile())
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THANKS!
Any questions?
You can find me at: [email protected]