Designing ggplots: making clear figures that communicate

Abstract

In this interactive workshop, you will make ggplot2 data visualizations clearer and more communicative. You’ll learn to declutter plots using highlighting, direct labeling, and by designing figures with better legends (or no legends at all). To make beautiful, expressive plots, we’ll view strategies you already know, like faceting, from a design perspective; hack geoms, legends, and the plot itself; and learn extension packages that let us do incredible things, like cowplot, gghighlight, and ggrepel. Along the way, we’ll take advantage of useful tools for working with color. We’ll also explore storytelling with data by annotating plots and combining plots with the patchwork package in a way that builds your narrative.

Malcolm Barrett

PhD Student in Epidemiology

I am an R developer and a PhD student in Epidemiology at the University of Southern California. My work in public health has spanned on-ground clinical education and research for clinical and cohort studies. Previously, I was an intern at RStudio, and I served two years in AmeriCorps at federally-qualified health centers in Michigan and New York City.