Assignment 2

Deconstruct, Reconstruct Web Report

Click the Original, Code and Reconstruction tabs to read about the issues and how they were fixed.

Original

Source: www.statista.com (August, 2022).

Objective

The objective of the visualisation is to discuss the number of road deaths in Australia for the last 5 years and to explore the potential reasons for this trend. The target audience for this article statement is likely to be the general public, particularly those residing in Australia who may be concerned about road safety and the number of fatalities. The statement could also be of interest to policymakers, government officials, and road safety advocates who are working to address this issue.

The visualisation chosen had the following three main issues:

• The Bar graph used to demonstrate the stats fail to show the trends over time. Line graphs are particularly useful in this scenario. By plotting data points on a timeline, we can easily see how the data changes over time.

• The figure lacks a self explanatory title and the axes are not labelled properly.

• The data displayed in the Bar graph is inaccurate for a few states for certain years.

Reference

• Christopher Hughes (Sep 8, 2022). Road deaths in Australia 2018-2022. Retrieved from Statista website: https://www.statista.com/statistics/991555/number-road-deaths-by-state-australia/

Code

The following code was used to fix the issues identified in the original.

library(ggplot2)

noyd <- data.frame(
  Year = c("2018","2018","2018","2018","2018","2018","2018","2018",
           "2019","2019","2019","2019","2019","2019","2019","2019",
           "2020","2020","2020","2020","2020","2020","2020","2020",
           "2021","2021","2021","2021","2021","2021","2021","2021",
           "2022","2022","2022","2022","2022","2022","2022","2022"),
  State = c("New South Wales","Victoria","Queensland",
            "South Australia","Western Australia","Tamania",
            "Northern Territory","Australian Capital Territory",
            "New South Wales","Victoria","Queensland",
            "South Australia","Western Australia","Tamania",
            "Northern Territory","Australian Capital Territory",
            "New South Wales","Victoria","Queensland",
            "South Australia","Western Australia","Tamania",
            "Northern Territory","Australian Capital Territory",
            "New South Wales","Victoria","Queensland",
            "South Australia","Western Australia","Tamania",
            "Northern Territory","Australian Capital Territory",
            "New South Wales","Victoria", "Queensland",
            "South Australia","Western Australia","Tamania",
            "Northern Territory","Australian Capital Territory"),
  Count = c(347,213,246,80,159,17,50,9,
            352,266,220,114,164,29,35,6,
            284,211,278,93,155,38,31,7,
            275,234,277,99,166,35,35,11,
            288,240,299,70,174,51,44,18)
)


noyd_plot <- ggplot(data = noyd, aes(group = State, x = Year, y = Count, color = State ))
noyd_plot <- noyd_plot + geom_point(size = 4, alpha = 0.4) + 
  geom_line() +
  labs(
    title = "Number of road deaths in Australia from 2018 to 2022, by State",
    x = "Year",
    y = "Number of Road Deaths") + 
    scale_color_brewer(palette = "Set1") + 
  theme_bw()

Data Reference

• Trina McLellan (2 Jan, 2023). More than 1,160 people died on Australian roads in 2022. Why is our death toll worsening? Retrieved from ABC News website: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-02/road-toll-2022-why-is-it-getting-worse-analysis/101821372

Reconstruction

The following plot fixes the main issues in the original.