Introduction and Application of a New Type of Jittered Scatter Plot: The Line-Up Jittered Scatter Plot

• Activity Number: 551
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Wednesday, August 12, 2015 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistical Graphics
• Author(s): Charlie C. Liu* and Todd M. Gross
• Companies: Kythera Biopharmaceuticals, Inc. and Kythera Biopharmaceuticals, Inc.
• Keywords: Scatter Plot ; Jittered ; Line-up ; Bee swarm plot ; Box-plot ; Data Visualization

Abstract

Jittered scatter plots are often used when there are overlapping data values in one of the axes, and use random or a pre-set jittering noise to separate the overlapping data. This paper introduces a new type of jittered scatter plot, known as line-up jittered where the data points are jittered systematically within a group instead of randomly. When the data points with differences within a certain limit on one of the axes are jittered and positioned by group, the data points are "lined-up", hence the name. A line-up jittered scatter plot is also known as a bee swarm plot because it resembles bees swarming around a hive. A line-up jittered scatter plot provides a more organized and better data visualization than its randomly jittered counterpart. The algorithms and a SAS macro performing the line-up jittering are provided. The applications of the new scatter plot are illustrated in examples, including in a customized box-plot with outliers presented in line-up scatters.