About

R can be used to make basic visual analytics, which can be helpful in understanding the data holistically. Additionally, R can help find correlations between variables and create scatter plots.

Tableau is a tool more tailored for visual analytics, while R is a powerful tool for statistics and other advanced topics in data analytics. In this lab we will explore both capabilities using two earlier sets of data credistrisk and marketing.

Setup

Remember to always set your working directory to the source file location. Go to ‘Session’, scroll down to ‘Set Working Directory’, and click ‘To Source File Location’. Read carefully the below and follow the instructions to complete the tasks and answer any questions. Submit your work to RPubs as detailed in previous notes.

Note

For your assignment you may be using different data sets than what is included here. Always read carefully the instructions on Sakai. Starting with this worksheet, tasks/questions to be completed/answered are highlighted in larger bolded fonts and numbered according to the particular task section.

Task 1: Basic Visual Analytics in R

Read the file marketing.csv and make sure all the columns are captured by checking the first couple rows of the dataset “head(mydata)”

mydata = read.csv("data/marketing.csv")
head(mydata)
##   case_number State sales radio paper  tv pos
## 1           1    IL 11125    65    89 250 1.3
## 2           2    IL 16121    73    55 260 1.6
## 3           3    AZ 16440    74    58 270 1.7
## 4           4    AZ 16876    75    82 270 1.3
## 5           5    IL 13965    69    75 255 1.5
## 6           6    MI 14999    70    71 255 2.1

How to create a bar chart using categorical variable

# Extract the State column from mydata
state = mydata$State
# Create a frequency table to extract the count for each state
state_table = table(state)
state_table
## state
## AZ CA CO FL IL MI MN 
##  3  3  2  3  3  4  2
# Execute the  command 
barplot(state_table)

1A) Repeat the above bar chart by adding proper labels to X and Y axis. See example below.
# Add labels to plot by replacing the ?? with a proper title
barplot(state_table, xlab= 'states', ylab= 'case numbers' )

How to create a histogram

# Extract the TV column from the data and create a histogram by running the command hist(variable) 
# where variable corresponds to the extracted sales column variable
tv=mydata$tv
hist(tv)

1B) Create a new histogram plot for Sales. Can you find the total cummulative sales from the histogram? Explain your answer

no, a histogram is not the best way to calculate total sales.

sales=mydata$sales
hist(sales)

How to create a pie chart

# The command to create a pie chart is pie(variable) where  variable is in reference to the particular column extracted from the file. In this example we define a variable called x. 
x = c(2,3,4,5)
pie(x)

1C) Create a pie chart for variable state. The pie chart should show the count of each state similar to the barplot above
state = c(3,3,2,3,3,4,2)
pie(state)

1D) Compare the pie chart to the earlier bar chart. Which one you think is a better comparative representation of the data and why?

the bar graph is better in this scenario because the heights of the bars are visually better at comparing the data for each state. Whereas the pie chart does not do much justice in comparing the states data to each other without confusion of which is smaller or larger and by how much.

Task 2 Scatter Plots & Correlation

The previous task focused on visualizing one variable. A good way to visualize two variables and also very common is a scatter plot.

How to create a scatter plot

# Plot Sales vs. Radio
# Radio will be on the x-axis
# Sales will be on the y-axis

sales = mydata$sales
radio = mydata$radio
plot(radio,sales)

# It is easier to see the trend and possible relationship by including a line that fit through the points.
# This is done with the command 
scatter.smooth(radio,sales)

2A) Create three other separate scatter plots for Sales vs TV, Sales vs Paper, and Sales vs Pos. Include the best fitting line in each plot. Pay attention to what goes on the x-axis and the y-axis. Put Sales always on the Y-axis
sales = mydata$sales
TV = mydata$TV
plot(tv,sales)

scatter.smooth(tv,sales)

sales = mydata$sales
paper = mydata$paper
plot(paper,sales)

scatter.smooth(paper,sales)

sales = mydata$sales
pos = mydata$pos
plot(pos,sales)

scatter.smooth(pos,sales)

##### 2B) Share your observations on trends and potential relationships the relationship between sales and tv was positive and had a high correlation. the relationship between sales and paper was slightly negative and a low correlation. The relationship between sales and pos had no correlation, the line went up and down.

To quantify the strength of any relationships in the data, we need to look at the correlation between two variables.

How to compute correlation

cor(sales,radio)
## [1] 0.9771381
2C) Repeat the correlation calculation for the followinig each pair of variables (sales,tv), (sales,paper), and (sales,pos)
cor(sales,tv)
## [1] 0.9579703
cor(sales,paper)
## [1] -0.2830683
cor(sales,pos)
## [1] 0.0126486
2D) Which pair has the highest correlation? How do these results reconcile with the scatter plots observations?

The sales and tv had the highest correlation, these findings agree with the scatterplot results.

Task 3 - Basic Visual Analytics in Tableau

Follow the directions on the worksheet, download tableau academic on your personal computer or use one of the labs computers.

– Download Tableau academic here: https://www.tableau.com/academic/students

– Refer to file ‘creditrisk.csv’ in the data folder

– Start Tableau and enter your LUC email if prompted.

– Import the file into Tableau. Choose the Text File option when importing

– Under the dimensions tab located on the left side of the screen DOUBLE click on the ‘Loan Purpose’, then DOUBLE click on ‘Number of Records’ variable located under Measures on the bottom left of the screen.

– From the upper right corner of the screen select the horizontal bars view and note the new chart. Familiarize yourself with the tool by trying other views. Only valid views will be highlighted in the menu.

– Create a new sheet by clicking on the icon in the bottom next to your current sheet.

3A) Double-click on the ‘Age’ variable in Measures and select the ‘Histogram’ view. Capture a screen shot and include here. Which age bin has the highest age count and what is the count?

the highest age bin is 22 and the count is 97.

3B) Drag-drop the variable ’Marital Status’found under Dimensions into the Marks Color box. Capture a screen shot and include here. Which age bin has the highest divorce count and what is the count?

The age bin 22 has the highest divorce count, the count is 46.

3C) Create another new sheet. Double-click ‘Months Employed’ and then double-click ‘Age’. Make sure Age appears in the columns field as shown in the image below. From the Sum(Age) drop down menu select Dimension. Repeat for Sum(Months Employed). Add another variable to the scatter plot by drag-drop the dimension variable ‘Gender’ into the Marks Color box. Capture a screen shot and include here. Share your observations

according to the scatterplot, men have been employed longer.

3D) In a new sheet generate a view of Gender, Number of Records, and Marital Status. Choose the best fitting view of your choice for the intended scope. Capture a screen shot and include here. Share your observations.

This bar graph showed that there were 135 divorced females and 21 divorced males. Also showed 36 married males and 233 single males.