Best practices for data visualisation
ggplot2.
Seminar (1 hour)
Best Practices for Data Visualisation
Data visualisation can be a very effective method of communicating research findings to broad audiences. However, good data visualisation requires appreciation and careful consideration of your audience, a chart’s purpose, and its technical design elements. It also involves a creative element, where we make choices about the story we want to tell. Our design decisions are then driven by the need to convey that story most effectively to our audience.
By the end of this session, you’ll:
- Understand why data visualisation is an important aspect of research communication,
- Know when visualisation is and isn’t an appropriate way of communicating,
- Have a solid visual vocabulary to describe what makes a chart effective,
- Be able to choose an appropriate chart type for a specific audience, and
- Know how to design effective charts that still look good.
This seminar will be tool-agnostic so whether you use R, Python, Excel, or pen and paper to develop charts, this session will provide you with the skills and confidence to create more effective visualisations.
Workshop (2 hours)
In this session, we’ll be working through the process of developing a visualisation in ggplot2. We’ll start with a brand new dataset and create some exploratory plots; sketch out some ideas and decide what we want to communicate; build a basic plot in ggplot2; and then refine our chart to create something that’s artistic and aesthetic, yet effective.
Some basic knowledge of the tidyverse will be helpful, but all of the code in this session will be explained and made available afterwards.