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I've stopped using box plots (2021)

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Re: I've stopped using box plots (2021)

#151

Post by SillyUsername »

sloowm wrote: post #129
SillyUsername wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm qualified in maths related computing and statistics to exam invigilator level, if that helps offset your bias.

That background would make you explicitly unqualified to asses the quality of box plots as a visualization method. Box plots are used throughout various fields of research that are far less mathematical in nature.

Rubbish. They're used extensively in probability statistics and confidence intervals. Field of research has bugger all to do with it :tears:

Re: I've stopped using box plots (2021)

#152

Post by svara »

The alternatives he proposes have their problems too.

Just plotting points will lead to saturation in high density areas that depends on point size and opacity.

Making bin color proportional to point density will require normalization to make the plot readable in many cases.

While I like these plots too in certain situations, I would argue they're actually less elegant than the boxplots for those reasons.

And come on, boxplots aren't that hard to explain to someone who already is used to working with percentiles.

Re: I've stopped using box plots (2021)

#153

Post by fjkdlsjflkds »

lolc wrote: post #76
rcxdude wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mean and variance are not features of a box plot. Box plots show the quartiles, which are about the cumulative distribution.

Which is why I find the article so compelling because I'd always read box plots as being about variance. To me the plot implied a quite normal distribution.

Note that "not knowing how to correctly interpret a boxplot" is not equivalent to "boxplots are useless".

Re: I've stopped using box plots (2021)

#154

Post by karmakaze »

IanCal wrote: post #58
IshKebab wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While true, that's not an additional problem compared to box plots which effectively just set the bandwidth to maximum. So IMO they are strictly better.

I find violin plots suggest far smoother results than actually exist so you need to be careful with the amount of data.

What about using rotated, symmetric histograms--like a quantized violin plot?

Re: I've stopped using box plots (2021)

#155

Post by inciampati »

DonsDiscountGas wrote: post #149
iainmerrick wrote: post #130

Lots of people defending box plots here -- a lot more than I expected! What I don't see is anyone saying "box plots are useful because they're the best kind of chart for [specific use case]". I can't off-hand think of any situation where I'd rather see a box plot than a strip plot or violin plot. When and why would you want to summarise the data so coarsely and visualize it so un-intuitively?

Violin plots are massively overhyped, IMHO. If your data is simple and unimodal, use a boxplot. If the distribution is more complicated and you need some detail, use a histogram or a ridge plot. Violin plots are never the best option; they're curvy so a little more pretty but don't do a good job of conveying information.

They really help when you're working with huge numbers. It's just a different kind of density plot. A vertical histogram can be nice too. Or you can use color and overlay a few regular old histograms. Go wild.

Re: I've stopped using box plots (2021)

#156

Post by johnbcoughlin »

lkdfjlkdfjlg wrote: post #135
iainmerrick wrote: post #130

Lots of people defending box plots here -- a lot more than I expected! What I don't see is anyone saying "box plots are useful because they're the best kind of chart for [specific use case]". I can't off-hand think of any situation where I'd rather see a box plot than a strip plot or violin plot. When and why would you want to summarise the data so coarsely and visualize it so un-intuitively?

> What I don't see is anyone saying "box plots are useful because they're the best kind of chart for [specific use case]". Box plots are useful because they're the best kind of chart for when I have multiple populations and I want to quickly glance whether it's reasonable to assume that the populations have the same median, or not (you do that comparing not just the medians of the populations but also the shaded area…

I can't see why a jitter plot with dark lines marking the quartile wouldn't be strictly better for this.

Re: I've stopped using box plots (2021)

#157

Post by canjobear »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #138
commathingy wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The exponential distribution (modal value 0) is not bell shaped. If you don't like it's range of non-negative, then take some smooth mollification

And the smooth mollification will look like...?

It looks like a spike, not a bell.

Re: I've stopped using box plots (2021)

#158

Post by aniviacat »

johnbcoughlin wrote: post #156
lkdfjlkdfjlg wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What I don't see is anyone saying "box plots are useful because they're the best kind of chart for [specific use case]". Box plots are useful because they're the best kind of chart for when I have multiple populations and I want to quickly glance whether it's reasonable to assume that the populations have the same median, or not (you do that comparing not just the medians of the populations but also the shaded area…

I can't see why a jitter plot with dark lines marking the quartile wouldn't be strictly better for this.

That's just a box plot with extra steps.

Sure, the jitter plot provides more data, but if you only make use of the quartiles anyway, that extra data is but an unnecessary distraction.

Re: I've stopped using box plots (2021)

#160

Post by klysm »

mkl wrote: post #21

The only advantage box plots had is that they can be drawn by hand. Now that computers are ubiquitous this is no longer valuable. Violin plots and bee swarm plots are better. Jittered strip plots can be okay if you're careful to avoid saturation (or more points added in the saturated region will disappear as they can't make it any darker).

100% on the money. Box plots are an archaic technique for working around limitations that no longer exist.
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