Data Visualization Techniques - Bar and Box Plot

Visualization Techniques

4. Bar Plots

Bar plots are an effective visualization technique when we have categorical data that consists of various categories or groups.

For example, we can use bar plots to view test scores categorized by gender. These plots allow us to easily see the difference between categories (gender) because the size of the bar varies with the magnitude of the represented variable (score), and categories are clearly divided and color-coded.

However, there is a catch. Bar plots work well when we are dealing with a few categories. If there are too many categories though, the bars can get very cluttered and the plots can quickly become hard to understand.

We can have several variations of bar plots. The image below shows three different types of bar plots: regular, grouped, and stacked:

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