[r] ggplot with 2 y axes on each side and different scales

Taking above answers and some fine-tuning (and for whatever it's worth), here is a way of achieving two scales via sec_axis:

Assume a simple (and purely fictional) data set dt: for five days, it tracks the number of interruptions VS productivity:

        when numinter prod
1 2018-03-20        1 0.95
2 2018-03-21        5 0.50
3 2018-03-23        4 0.70
4 2018-03-24        3 0.75
5 2018-03-25        4 0.60

(the ranges of both columns differ by about factor 5).

The following code will draw both series that they use up the whole y axis:

ggplot() + 
  geom_bar(mapping = aes(x = dt$when, y = dt$numinter), stat = "identity", fill = "grey") +
  geom_line(mapping = aes(x = dt$when, y = dt$prod*5), size = 2, color = "blue") + 
  scale_x_date(name = "Day", labels = NULL) +
  scale_y_continuous(name = "Interruptions/day", 
    sec.axis = sec_axis(~./5, name = "Productivity % of best", 
      labels = function(b) { paste0(round(b * 100, 0), "%")})) + 
  theme(
      axis.title.y = element_text(color = "grey"),
      axis.title.y.right = element_text(color = "blue"))

Here's the result (above code + some color tweaking):

two scales in one ggplot2

The point (aside from using sec_axis when specifying the y_scale is to multiply each value the 2nd data series with 5 when specifying the series. In order to get the labels right in the sec_axis definition, it then needs dividing by 5 (and formatting). So a crucial part in above code is really *5 in the geom_line and ~./5 in sec_axis (a formula dividing the current value . by 5).

In comparison (I don't want to judge the approaches here), this is how two charts on top of one another look like:

two charts above one another

You can judge for yourself which one better transports the message (“Don’t disrupt people at work!”). Guess that's a fair way to decide.

The full code for both images (it's not really more than what's above, just complete and ready to run) is here: https://gist.github.com/sebastianrothbucher/de847063f32fdff02c83b75f59c36a7d a more detailed explanation here: https://sebastianrothbucher.github.io/datascience/r/visualization/ggplot/2018/03/24/two-scales-ggplot-r.html

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