Data Visualization with R and ggplot2

In this one-day hands-on workshop, we’re going to have a close look at ggplot2, a widely used R package that implements the so-called grammar of graphics. Its concise and consistent syntax allows you to create high-quality data visualisations in a quick and iterative manner that are suitable for both exploration and communication.

By the end of this workshop you’ll have a solid understanding of the grammar of graphics and how to create data visualisations in R for your daily work. But beware: there’s a good chance you will want to learn more about R.

What you’ll learn

• Master the fundamentals of data vizualisation and their use in the grammar of graphics
• Learn the kinds of visualisations that are applicable for each data type
• Explore bar charts, line plots, scatter plots, histograms, and boxplots
• Customize axis scales, facets, color mappings and other aspects
• Discover ways to customise visualisations using fonts, colors, and themes

This workshop is for you because

• You want to efficiently communicate your analysis results
• You want to develop attractive and useful graphs and charts
• You’ve been visualising data using Excel and want to learn to how to do it programmatically
• You want to correctly use data visualization techniques to better explore your datasets
• You’ve used ggplot2 a couple of times but would like a better understanding of the underlying fundamentals

Schedule

• Motivating examples of ggplot2
• A layered grammar of graphics
  • Aesthetics
  • Geometries
  • Under the hood of layers
  • Statistical transformations
  • Scales
  • Coordinate systems
  • Facets
  • Labels
  • Themes
• Implementing your house style as a theme
• Noteworthy extensions of ggplot2
  • Network visualisations
  • Animations
  • Geographical visualisations
• Where to go from here?

Prerequisites

You’re expected to have some experience with programming in R and RStudio. Our workshop Programming in R is one option that can help you with that.

Recommended preparation

Participants are kindly requested to have the following items installed prior to the start of the workshop:

• R version 4.0 or later
• RStudio v1.3 or later
• The latest versions of the following R packages, by running: install.packages(c("tidyverse", "ggrepel"), dependencies = TRUE)