Principles of Data Visualization and Introduction to ggplot2

I have provided you with data about the 5,000 fastest growing companies in the US, as compiled by Inc. magazine. lets read this in:

And lets preview this data:

head(inc)
##   Rank                         Name Growth_Rate   Revenue
## 1    1                         Fuhu      421.48 1.179e+08
## 2    2        FederalConference.com      248.31 4.960e+07
## 3    3                The HCI Group      245.45 2.550e+07
## 4    4                      Bridger      233.08 1.900e+09
## 5    5                       DataXu      213.37 8.700e+07
## 6    6 MileStone Community Builders      179.38 4.570e+07
##                       Industry Employees         City State
## 1 Consumer Products & Services       104   El Segundo    CA
## 2          Government Services        51     Dumfries    VA
## 3                       Health       132 Jacksonville    FL
## 4                       Energy        50      Addison    TX
## 5      Advertising & Marketing       220       Boston    MA
## 6                  Real Estate        63       Austin    TX
summary(inc)
##       Rank                          Name       Growth_Rate     
##  Min.   :   1   (Add)ventures         :   1   Min.   :  0.340  
##  1st Qu.:1252   @Properties           :   1   1st Qu.:  0.770  
##  Median :2502   1-Stop Translation USA:   1   Median :  1.420  
##  Mean   :2502   110 Consulting        :   1   Mean   :  4.612  
##  3rd Qu.:3751   11thStreetCoffee.com  :   1   3rd Qu.:  3.290  
##  Max.   :5000   123 Exteriors         :   1   Max.   :421.480  
##                 (Other)               :4995                    
##     Revenue                                  Industry      Employees      
##  Min.   :2.000e+06   IT Services                 : 733   Min.   :    1.0  
##  1st Qu.:5.100e+06   Business Products & Services: 482   1st Qu.:   25.0  
##  Median :1.090e+07   Advertising & Marketing     : 471   Median :   53.0  
##  Mean   :4.822e+07   Health                      : 355   Mean   :  232.7  
##  3rd Qu.:2.860e+07   Software                    : 342   3rd Qu.:  132.0  
##  Max.   :1.010e+10   Financial Services          : 260   Max.   :66803.0  
##                      (Other)                     :2358   NA's   :12       
##             City          State     
##  New York     : 160   CA     : 701  
##  Chicago      :  90   TX     : 387  
##  Austin       :  88   NY     : 311  
##  Houston      :  76   VA     : 283  
##  San Francisco:  75   FL     : 282  
##  Atlanta      :  74   IL     : 273  
##  (Other)      :4438   (Other):2764

Think a bit on what these summaries mean. Use the space below to add some more relevant non-visual exploratory information you think helps you understand this data:

#find number of observations and variables in the dataset
glimpse(inc)
## Observations: 5,001
## Variables: 8
## $ Rank        <int> 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 1…
## $ Name        <fct> Fuhu, FederalConference.com, The HCI Group, Bridger,…
## $ Growth_Rate <dbl> 421.48, 248.31, 245.45, 233.08, 213.37, 179.38, 174.…
## $ Revenue     <dbl> 1.179e+08, 4.960e+07, 2.550e+07, 1.900e+09, 8.700e+0…
## $ Industry    <fct> Consumer Products & Services, Government Services, H…
## $ Employees   <int> 104, 51, 132, 50, 220, 63, 27, 75, 97, 15, 149, 165,…
## $ City        <fct> El Segundo, Dumfries, Jacksonville, Addison, Boston,…
## $ State       <fct> CA, VA, FL, TX, MA, TX, TN, CA, UT, RI, VA, CA, FL, …
#getting the metrics about data types, zeros, infinite numbers, and missing values
df_status(inc)
##      variable q_zeros p_zeros q_na p_na q_inf p_inf    type unique
## 1        Rank       0       0    0 0.00     0     0 integer   4999
## 2        Name       0       0    0 0.00     0     0  factor   5001
## 3 Growth_Rate       0       0    0 0.00     0     0 numeric   1147
## 4     Revenue       0       0    0 0.00     0     0 numeric   1069
## 5    Industry       0       0    0 0.00     0     0  factor     25
## 6   Employees       0       0   12 0.24     0     0 integer    691
## 7        City       0       0    0 0.00     0     0  factor   1519
## 8       State       0       0    0 0.00     0     0  factor     52

Question 1

Create a graph that shows the distribution of companies in the dataset by State (ie how many are in each state). There are a lot of States, so consider which axis you should use. This visualization is ultimately going to be consumed on a ‘portrait’ oriented screen (ie taller than wide), which should further guide your layout choices.

#count number of companies in each state
companies <- inc %>% select(c('State', 'Name')) %>% count(c('State')) 
head(companies)
##   State freq
## 1    AK    2
## 2    AL   51
## 3    AR    9
## 4    AZ  100
## 5    CA  701
## 6    CO  134
#order states by number of companies
companies$State <- factor(companies$State, levels = companies$State[order(companies$freq)])
#create graph
ggplot(data=companies, aes(x=State,y=freq)) +
  geom_bar(position="dodge",stat="identity") + 
  labs(x="State", y = "Number of Companies") +
  coord_flip() +
  ggtitle("Distribution of companies by State")

Quesiton 2

Lets dig in on the state with the 3rd most companies in the data set. Imagine you work for the state and are interested in how many people are employed by companies in different industries. Create a plot that shows the average and/or median employment by industry for companies in this state (only use cases with full data, use R’s complete.cases() function.) In addition to this, your graph should show how variable the ranges are, and you should deal with outliers.

#find state with the 3rd most companies
third_state <- companies[order(-companies$freq),] 
print(third_state$State[3])
## [1] NY
## 52 Levels: PR AK WV WY SD MT NM VT HI AR ND MS ME DE RI ID NH NV NE ... CA
#select data of the state with the 3rd most companies
third_state_companies <- subset(inc, State = third_state)

#ignore cases with missing data
third_state_companies  <- third_state_companies[complete.cases(third_state_companies),]
#create box plots
ggplot(third_state_companies, mapping = aes(x = reorder(Industry, Employees, FUN = "median"), y = Employees)) + 
  geom_boxplot(outlier.shape = NA) + 
  labs(x="Industry", y = "Number of Employees") +
  ggtitle("Employment distribution by industry for companies
          in the state with the 3rd most companies") +
  coord_flip(ylim = c(0, 750))

Question 3

Now imagine you work for an investor and want to see which industries generate the most revenue per employee. Create a chart that makes this information clear. Once again, the distribution per industry should be shown.

#create box plots
ggplot(third_state_companies, mapping = aes(x = reorder(Industry, Revenue/Employees, FUN = "median"), y = Revenue/Employees)) +
  geom_boxplot(outlier.shape = NA) +
  labs(x = "Industry", y = "Revenue per employee") +
  ggtitle("Industries generate the most revenue per employee in
          the state with the 3rd most companies") +
  coord_flip(ylim = c(0, 2000000))