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

Original


Source: ACMA Research and Analysis Section (2015).


Objective

The objective of the original data visualization is to show the percentage of Australian mobile-only phone users in the population over time. The targeted audience for this visualization could be researchers, policymakers, or individuals interested in mobile phone usage trends.

The visualisation chosen had the following three main issues:

Issue 1: The y-axis label is missing, making it unclear what the values represent.
Issue 2: The x-axis labels are not aligned properly with the data points, leading to difficulty in interpreting the years.
Issue 3: The font size of the data labels is too small, making it hard to read the exact percentage values.

Reference

Code

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

library(ggplot2)
smartphone <- data.frame(
  Year = c("Dec-10", "Dec-11", "Dec-12", "Dec-13", "Dec-14"),
  Count = c(2247, 2818, 3379, 4476, 5218),
  Perc = c(13, 16, 19, 25, 29)
)

p1 <- ggplot(data = smartphone, aes(group = 1, x = Year, y = Perc))
p1 <- p1 + 
  geom_line(stat = "identity", colour = "turquoise3") + 
  geom_point(colour = "turquoise3") + 
  geom_text(aes(label = paste(Perc, "%", sep = "")), nudge_y = -2, nudge_x = .05, size = 4) +
  labs(
    title = "Australian Mobile-only Phone Users % of Population",
    x = "Year",
    y = "Percentage",
    caption = "Source: ACMA Research and Analysis Section (2015)"
  ) + 
  theme_minimal() + 
  scale_y_continuous(limits = c(0, 30)) +
  theme(
    plot.title = element_text(size = 16, face = "bold"),
    axis.title.x = element_text(size = 12),
    axis.title.y = element_text(size = 12),
    axis.text = element_text(size = 10),
    axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 45, hjust = 1)
  )

Data Reference

Reconstruction

The following plot fixes the main issues in the original.

In the reconstructed plot, several improvements have been made to address the issues identified in the original visualization:

Issue 1: The y-axis label has been added, now indicating that the values represent the percentage of the population.
Issue 2: The x-axis labels have been aligned properly with the data points, making it easier to interpret the years.
Issue 3: The font size of the data labels has been increased, improving readability and making it easier to read the exact percentage values.
The reconstructed plot provides a clear representation of the percentage of Australian mobile-only phone users in the population over time. The turquoise line and data points show the trend, while the data labels provide specific percentage values for each year.

Overall, the reconstruction enhances the clarity and effectiveness of the visualization, allowing the audience to understand the data more easily.