Outline

0930-1030

Lecture : Visual data analysis — why and how

1030-1130

Code #1 : Read-in and organise the area-level voting datasets

1130-1200

Coffee and questions

1200-1300

Code #2 : Generate graphics to expose structure in area-level voting

1300-1400

Lunch

1400-1615

Code #3 : Generate graphics to evaluate explanations behind that structure

1615-1630

Wrap up : How to extend what you’ve learnt

Introduction

Welcome to this workshop on Trump, Brexit and Tidy Data Graphics. From reading the course abstract, you will have hopefully noticed that this is a practical-focussed session aimed at covering the fundamentals of visual data analysis (as well as a little about the two political events). The genesis for the session came from a realisation that whilst there is plenty of excellent how-to material on using R and ggplot2 for Data Visualization, there are comparatively few examples explaining why data graphics are created. The why aspect can be interpreted in two ways: why the graphics themselves (the insight they add); but also the why around the code used to produce them. This latter point is an important one — my thesis is that the process of writing code to describe graphics and data transformations encourages, records and communicates deep analytic thinking in a similar way to the report writing process. Check out Observable and this explanatory post for an interesting take on this.

Through the session you will:

  • apply high-level functions for curating Tidy data in R

  • appreciate some key principles of good data visualization design

  • generate data graphics using a consistent and principled vocabulary (ggplot2)

You will do so by completing a visual analysis of datasets describing the 2016 EU Referendum in Great Britain and 2016 Presidential Election in the US. The GB data are aggregated to Local Authority District level (of which there are 380) and the US data aggregated to county (of which there are 3,108 in mainland US). Along with the results data, you will be provided with some area-level socio-demographic variables.

Through your visual data analysis, you will:

  • expose (geo-spatial) structure in area-level voting behaviour

  • evaluate the extent to which area-level demographics explain area-level variation in the vote

  • explore whether explanations vary for different parts of the UK and US

Workshop Organisation

You will have noticed the day Outline above. We’re a reasonably mixed group in terms of experience. I have therefore kept the practical sessions (labelled code #<no.>) quite 'scripted', with mostly full code blocks that you can use directly when generating outputs. More experienced data analysts and R users may wish to kick on and re-configure data graphics of their own. This activity is encouraged. However, I’d really like everyone to be working on the same parts of the dataset at roughly the same time — the morning and afternoon activities have been designed with this in mind.

The practical sessions do not cover the fundamentals of the R syntax and data structures —  R for Data Science is probably the most efficient introduction that will also compliment what is covered in these sessions. If you know very little of R, and have never opened RStudio, I’ve put together a quick introductory page:

Content by Roger Beecham | 2018 | Licensed under Creative Commons BY 4.0.