Decluttering and mapping in ggplot

Dr. Nathaniel Cline

Agenda

1

Decluttering Principles

2

Decluttering in R

3

An Introduction to Maps

Decluttering Principles

Lack of visual order

Alignment

• Often avoid center-aligned text (sloppy)

• Eyes move in “z” so upper-left justify works well

• diagonal components processed slowly

White space

• We’ve discussed before, white space should not be feared!

• Offers cognitive rest

• Margins should remain free of text and visuals.

• use white space strategically for emphasis

Non‐strategic use of contrast

• We’ve emphasized contrast before, but as the authors point out, it could be used poorly

• Too much contrast without purpose looks busy and confusing

• Effective contrast significantly reduces cognitive load

Step-by-step

Imagine that you manage an information technology (IT) team. Your team receives tickets, or technical issues, from employees. In the past year, you’ve had a couple of people leave and decided at the time not to replace them. You have heard a rumbling of com- plaints from the remaining employees about having to “pick up the slack.” You’ve just been asked about your hiring needs for the coming year and are wondering if you should hire a couple more people.

Fixing the first draft

1. Remove chart border

2. Remove gridlines

3. Remove data markers

4. Clean up axis labels

5. Label data directly

6. Leverage consistent color

Decluttering in R

Code

ggplot(data_long, aes(x = MonthYear, y = time_close, fill = Sales_Type)) +
  geom_bar(stat = "identity", position = position_dodge(width = 0.6), width = .6) +
  geom_text(aes(label = time_close), vjust = -0.5, size = 5, position = position_dodge(width = 0.6)) +
  labs(x = "date", y = "Time to Close") +
  ggtitle("Time to Close Deal") +
  labs(subtitle = "goal = 90 days") +  # Add the subtitle here
  scale_fill_manual(values = c("Direct Sales" = "blue", "Indirect Sales" = "green")) +
  theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 45, hjust = 1), 
        plot.title = element_text(size = 20, hjust = 0.5),
        plot.subtitle = element_text(size = 14, hjust = 0.5))

How can we reduce clutter in R?

• only way to learn how to mess with the elements of the graph is to look at the ggplot cheatsheet and google and practice

• I will walk through how I would do it

Remove Grid Lines

Code

ggplot(data_long, aes(x = MonthYear, y = time_close, fill = Sales_Type)) +
  geom_bar(stat = "identity", position = position_dodge(width = 0.6), width = .6) +
  geom_text(aes(label = time_close), vjust = -0.5, size = 5, position = position_dodge(width = 0.6)) +
  labs(x = "date", y = "Time to Close") +
  ggtitle("Time to Close Deal") +
  labs(subtitle = "goal = 90 days") +  # Add the subtitle here
  scale_fill_manual(values = c("Direct Sales" = "blue", "Indirect Sales" = "green")) +
  theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 45, hjust = 1), 
        plot.title = element_text(size = 20, hjust = 0.5),
        plot.subtitle = element_text(size = 14, hjust = 0.5),
        panel.grid = element_blank())

Get rid of 45-degree labels

Code

ggplot(data_long, aes(x = MonthYear, y = time_close, fill = Sales_Type)) +
  geom_bar(stat = "identity", position = position_dodge(width = 0.6), width = .6) +
  geom_text(aes(label = time_close), vjust = -0.5, size = 5, position = position_dodge(width = 0.6)) +
  labs(x = "date", y = "Time to Close") +
  ggtitle("Time to Close Deal") +
  labs(subtitle = "goal = 90 days") +  # Add the subtitle here
  scale_fill_manual(values = c("Direct Sales" = "blue", "Indirect Sales" = "green")) +
  theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 0, hjust = 1), 
        plot.title = element_text(size = 20, hjust = 0.5),
        plot.subtitle = element_text(size = 14, hjust = 0.5),
        panel.grid = element_blank())

Thicken bars

Code

ggplot(data_long, aes(x = MonthYear, y = time_close, fill = Sales_Type)) +
  geom_bar(stat = "identity", position = position_dodge(width = 0.9), width = .9) +
  geom_text(aes(label = time_close), vjust = -0.5, size = 5, position = position_dodge(width = 0.9)) +
  labs(x = "date", y = "Time to Close") +
  ggtitle("Time to Close Deal") +
  labs(subtitle = "goal = 90 days") +  # Add the subtitle here
  scale_fill_manual(values = c("Direct Sales" = "blue", "Indirect Sales" = "green")) +
  theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 0, hjust = 1), 
        plot.title = element_text(size = 20, hjust = 0.5),
        plot.subtitle = element_text(size = 14, hjust = 0.5),
        panel.grid = element_blank())

Put labels in bars

Code

ggplot(data_long, aes(x = MonthYear, y = time_close, fill = Sales_Type)) +
  geom_bar(stat = "identity", position = position_dodge(width = 0.9), width = .9) +
  geom_text(aes(label = time_close), color = "white", vjust = 1.5, size = 3, position = position_dodge(width = 0.9)) +
  labs(x = "date", y = "Time to Close") +
  ggtitle("Time to Close Deal") +
  labs(subtitle = "goal = 90 days") +  # Add the subtitle here
  scale_fill_manual(values = c("Direct Sales" = "blue", "Indirect Sales" = "green")) +
  theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 0, hjust = 1), 
        plot.title = element_text(size = 20, hjust = 0.5),
        plot.subtitle = element_text(size = 14, hjust = 0.5),
        panel.grid = element_blank())

Move title over

Code

ggplot(data_long, aes(x = MonthYear, y = time_close, fill = Sales_Type)) +
  geom_bar(stat = "identity", position = position_dodge(width = 0.9), width = .9) +
  geom_text(aes(label = time_close), color = "white", vjust = 1.5, size = 3, position = position_dodge(width = 0.9)) +
  labs(x = "date", y = "Time to Close") +
  ggtitle("Time to Close Deal") +
  labs(subtitle = "goal = 90 days") +  # Add the subtitle here
  scale_fill_manual(values = c("Direct Sales" = "blue", "Indirect Sales" = "green")) +
  theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 0, hjust = 1), 
        plot.title = element_text(size = 20, hjust = 0),
        plot.subtitle = element_text(size = 14, hjust = 0),
        panel.grid = element_blank())

Make panel transparent and put legend on bottom?

Code

ggplot(data_long, aes(x = MonthYear, y = time_close, fill = Sales_Type)) +
  geom_bar(stat = "identity", position = position_dodge(width = 0.9), width = .9) +
  geom_text(aes(label = time_close), color = "white", vjust = 1.5, size = 3, position = position_dodge(width = 0.9)) +
  labs(x = "date", y = "Time to Close") +
  ggtitle("Time to Close Deal") +
  labs(subtitle = "goal = 90 days") +  # Add the subtitle here
  scale_fill_manual(values = c("Direct Sales" = "blue", "Indirect Sales" = "green")) +
  theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 0, hjust = 1), 
        plot.title = element_text(size = 20, hjust = 0),
        plot.subtitle = element_text(size = 14, hjust = 0),
        panel.grid = element_blank(),
        panel.background = element_blank(),
        plot.background = element_blank(),
        legend.position = "bottom", legend.box = "horizontal"
        )

Remove legend title

Code

ggplot(data_long, aes(x = MonthYear, y = time_close, fill = Sales_Type)) +
  geom_bar(stat = "identity", position = position_dodge(width = 0.9), width = .9) +
  geom_text(aes(label = time_close), color = "white", vjust = 1.5, size = 3, position = position_dodge(width = 0.9)) +
  labs(x = "date", y = "Time to Close") +
  ggtitle("Time to Close Deal") +
  labs(subtitle = "goal = 90 days", fill = "") +  # Add the subtitle here
  scale_fill_manual(values = c("Direct Sales" = "blue", "Indirect Sales" = "green")) +
  theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 0, hjust = 1), 
        plot.title = element_text(size = 20, hjust = 0),
        plot.subtitle = element_text(size = 14, hjust = 0),
        panel.grid = element_blank(),
        panel.background = element_blank(),
        plot.background = element_blank(),
        legend.position = "bottom", legend.box = "horizontal"
        ) 

Add goal and remove subtitle

Code

ggplot(data_long, aes(x = MonthYear, y = time_close, fill = Sales_Type)) +
  geom_bar(stat = "identity", position = position_dodge(width = 0.9), width = .9) +
  geom_text(aes(label = time_close), color = "white", vjust = 1.5, size = 3, position = position_dodge(width = 0.9)) +
  labs(x = "date", y = "Time to Close") +
  ggtitle("Time to Close Deal") +
  labs(fill = "") +  # Add the subtitle here
  scale_fill_manual(values = c("Direct Sales" = "blue", "Indirect Sales" = "green")) +
  theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 0, hjust = 1), 
        plot.title = element_text(size = 20, hjust = 0),
        plot.subtitle = element_text(size = 14, hjust = 0),
        panel.grid = element_blank(),
        panel.background = element_blank(),
        plot.background = element_blank(),
        legend.position = "bottom", legend.box = "horizontal"
        ) +
  geom_hline(yintercept = 90, linetype = "dashed", color = "red") +
  geom_text(aes(x = Inf, y = 90, label = "goal"), hjust = 0, vjust = -1, color = "red")

Alter axis labels and titles

Code

data_long$Month <- str_remove(data_long$MonthYear, "\\s\\d{4}$")  # Remove the year part

ggplot(data_long, aes(x = Month, y = time_close, fill = Sales_Type)) +
  geom_bar(stat = "identity", position = position_dodge(width = 0.9), width = .9) +
  geom_text(aes(label = time_close), color = "white", vjust = 1.5, size = 3, position = position_dodge(width = 0.9)) +
  labs(x = "2019", y = "Time to Close") +
  ggtitle("Time to Close Deal") +
  labs(fill = "") +  # Add the subtitle here
  scale_fill_manual(values = c("Direct Sales" = "blue", "Indirect Sales" = "green")) +
  theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 0, hjust = 1), 
        axis.title.x = element_text(size = 14, hjust = 0.02, face = "bold"),
        axis.title.y = element_text(size = 14, hjust = 1, face = "bold"),
        plot.title = element_text(size = 30, hjust = 0),
        plot.subtitle = element_text(size = 14, hjust = 0),
        panel.grid = element_blank(),
        panel.background = element_blank(),
        plot.background = element_blank(),
        legend.position = "bottom", legend.box = "horizontal"
        ) +
  geom_hline(yintercept = 90, linetype = "dashed", color = "red") +
  geom_text(aes(x = Inf, y = 90, label = "goal"), hjust = 0, vjust = -1, color = "red")

Ok the colors are killing me

Code

ggplot(data_long, aes(x = Month, y = time_close, fill = Sales_Type)) +
  geom_bar(stat = "identity", position = position_dodge(width = 0.9), width = .9) +
  geom_text(aes(label = time_close), color = "white", vjust = 1.5, size = 3, position = position_dodge(width = 0.9)) +
  labs(x = "2019", y = "Time to Close") +
  ggtitle("Time to Close Deal") +
  labs(fill = "") +  # Add the subtitle here
  scale_fill_manual(values = c("Direct Sales" = "#22668D", "Indirect Sales" = "#8ECDDD")) +
  theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 0, hjust = 0.5), 
        axis.title.x = element_text(size = 14, hjust = 0.02, face = "bold"),
        axis.title.y = element_text(size = 14, hjust = 1, face = "bold"),
        plot.title = element_text(size = 30, hjust = 0, face = "bold"),
        plot.subtitle = element_text(size = 14, hjust = 0),
        panel.grid = element_blank(),
        panel.background = element_blank(),
        plot.background = element_blank(),
        legend.position = "bottom", legend.box = "horizontal"
        ) +
  geom_hline(yintercept = 90, linetype = "dashed", color = "#A94442") +
  geom_text(aes(x = .5, y = 90, label = "Goal"), hjust = 0, vjust = -1, color = "#A94442")

Fancy Line Plot?

Code

library(dygraphs)
library(xts)


don <- xts(sales[, c("Direct Sales", "Indirect Sales", "Goal")], order.by = as.Date(sales$Date))

dygraph(don) %>%
  dyOptions(
    labelsUTC = TRUE,
    fillGraph = FALSE,
    drawGrid = FALSE,
    colors = c("#98ACB5", "#8BAB82", "#A94442"),  
    strokeWidth = 4  
  ) %>%
  dyRangeSelector() %>%
  dyCrosshair(direction = "vertical") %>%
  dyHighlight(
    highlightCircleSize = 5,
    highlightSeriesBackgroundAlpha = .5,
    hideOnMouseOut = FALSE
  ) %>%
  dyRoller(rollPeriod = 1)

Introduction to Mapping

Maps

• Maps can be both useful and wildly abused

• Let’s look at an early example of how maps can be really powerful

John Snow and 1854 Cholera Epidemic

• 10% of the population of
  Soho died in a week (!!)

• Miasma theory said it was
  because the air was bad

The Broad Street pump

Outright lies

Points can be useless

Chloropleth’s

• Choropleth maps show geographical regions colored, shaded, or graded according to some variable.

• They can be striking and communicate truth, but can also be misleading

Chloropleth’s can be good

Chloropleth’s can be bad

Land doesn’t vote

Cartograms

Creative mapping

Begley’s Prison Mapping

  - "A lot of times we’ll just use numbers to talk about this idea of mass incarceration,” Begley says, “and I thought that there maybe was something powerful about using no numbers, no words and just having the images.”

Creative mapping

“Part performance art, part public education,
the Arts Committee of City Life/Vida Urbana
literally drew a line down Washington Street
Saturday afternoon to show what housing
discrimination looks like.

Drawing on the 1934 policy of the Federal
Housing Administration not to underwrite
mortgages in areas they determined were poor
risks, CL/VU recreated the red line that the
FHA drew in residential areas marking the
boundaries of where they would not grant
housing mortgages.”

US Map Projections

US Map Projections

Finding Projection Codes

• spatialreference.org

• epsg.io

• proj.org

Mapping in R

GIS in R

• Geographic information is shared as shapefiles

• These are not like regular single CSV files!

• Shapefiles come as zipped files with a bunch of different files inside

Shapefiles

Shapefiles

library(sf)
world_shapes <- read_sf("ne_110m_admin_0_countries/ne_110m_admin_0_countries.shp")

Simple feature collection with 7 features and 3 fields
Geometry type: MULTIPOLYGON
Dimension:     XY
Bounding box:  xmin: -180 ymin: -18.28799 xmax: 180 ymax: 83.23324
Geodetic CRS:  WGS 84
# A tibble: 7 × 4
  TYPE              GEOUNIT                  ISO_A3                     geometry
  <chr>             <chr>                    <chr>            <MULTIPOLYGON [°]>
1 Sovereign country Fiji                     FJI    (((180 -16.06713, 180 -16.5…
2 Sovereign country Tanzania                 TZA    (((33.90371 -0.95, 34.07262…
3 Indeterminate     Western Sahara           ESH    (((-8.66559 27.65643, -8.66…
4 Sovereign country Canada                   CAN    (((-122.84 49, -122.9742 49…
5 Country           United States of America USA    (((-122.84 49, -120 49, -11…
6 Sovereign country Kazakhstan               KAZ    (((87.35997 49.21498, 86.59…
7 Sovereign country Uzbekistan               UZB    (((55.96819 41.30864, 55.92…

Where to find shapefiles

• US Census Bureau for US maps

• or just google, “shapefiles for….”

If you have a “geometry” column

ggplot() +
  geom_sf(data = world_shapes)

Changing projections

ggplot() +
  geom_sf(data = world_shapes) +
  coord_sf(crs = "+proj=merc")

Changing projections

ggplot() +
  geom_sf(data = world_shapes) +
  coord_sf(crs = "+proj=robin")

Normal aesthetics

ggplot() +
  geom_sf(data = world_shapes, 
          aes(fill = POP_EST),
          color = "white", size = 0.15) +
  coord_sf(crs = "+proj=robin") +
  scale_fill_gradient(labels = scales::comma) +
  labs(fill = NULL) +
  theme_void() +
  theme(legend.position = "bottom")

Exercise: Mapping from Census