RelationshipSample
Scatter plot
Plots two numeric measures against each other to reveal correlation, clusters and outliers.
The plain read: does spend rise with usage?
Sample data
Use it when
- Looking for a relationship between two measures
- Spotting clusters or outliers
Avoid it when
- One of the measures is categorical
- Tens of thousands of points: use a hexbin plot
Display modes
- Default
- The plain read: does spend rise with usage?
- Distribution
- Adds marginal histograms so the spread of each measure is visible, not just their relationship.
- Comparative
- Colours points by segment to show whether the relationship differs between groups.
- Annotated
- Calls out the accounts that break the pattern: the ones worth investigating.
Seen in the wild
CO₂ emissions against GDP per capita
Our World in Data
Climate and economics · interactive
Gapminder Tools: the animated bubble chart
Gapminder Foundation
Global development · interactive
The Hertzsprung–Russell diagram
Ejnar Hertzsprung and Henry Norris Russell · 1911
The night-before charts on the Challenger O-rings
Morton Thiokol engineers, for NASA · 1986
Engineering safety · static image
More in Relationship
Bubble chart
A scatter plot where circle area encodes a third measure.
Connected scatter plot
Plots two measures against each other and joins the points in time order, so the path tells a story.
Hexbin plot
Bins many points into hexagons and colours each by count, so density stays readable where dots would pile up.