Block 5: Visualization

Setup Pre-requisites:

Welcome to Block 5 of the UVic RDM Jumpstart!

This block is dedicated to the art of data visualizations. We’ll start the session by looking at different types of visualizations, and what makes a good visualization. We will then break into small groups for an exercise where you’ll explore different types of visualizations and talk about what you like/dislike about them, and how this might inform your visualization practices. This will be followed by getting our hands dirty with ggplot2, which is a very powerful R package designed to create visualizations. After walking through some of the basic steps to creating a visualization with ggplot2, you’ll be given a chunk of time to play around and explore with some exercises.

Below you’ll find the overarching learning objectives for Block 5, as well as an overview of each session.

Block 5 Learning Objectives

By the end of this block, you will be able to:

  • Review ggplot2 within the data science workflow
  • Discuss criteria of good data visualizations
  • Review and critique various types of data visualizations
  • Identify the grammar of ggplot2 in creating visualizations in R
  • Begin playing around with more advanced types of visualizations in R

Block 5 Session Overviews

Session 1: Types of Visualizations

  • Introduce types of data visualizations
  • Present different types of visualization
    • What is good?
    • What is not so good?
  • Explore visualization galleries and critique various types of visualizations

Session 2: Visualizations with ggplot

  • Load ggplot2 and the project dataset into R
  • Discuss the general grammar of ggplot2
  • Build some basic visualization plots using the project dataset
  • Build some more advanced plots using the project dataset
  • Explore the possibilities of ggplot2 with exercises