Deducer: A Data Analysis GUI for R

Abstract

While R has proven itself to be a powerful and flexible tool for data exploration and analysis, it lacks the ease of use present in other software such as SPSS and Minitab. An easy to use graphical user interface (GUI) can help new users accomplish tasks that would otherwise be out of their reach, and improves the efficiency of expert users by replacing fifty key strokes with five mouse clicks. With this in mind, Deducer presents dialogs that are understandable for the beginner, and yet contain all (or most) of the options that an experienced statistician, performing the same task, would want. An Excel-like spreadsheet is included for easy data viewing and editing. Deducer is based on Java's Swing GUI library and can be used on any common operating system. The GUI is independent of the specific R console and can easily be used by calling a text-based menu system. Graphical menus are provided for the JGR console and the Windows R GUI.