There are numerous chart types to help us determine the main properties of a distribution (like central tendency, spread and form). The most popular ones are histograms, frequency polygons and box-and-whisker plots.

The challenge with these kind of charts is the fact they group your data in such a way it potentially could hide important features. Histograms and frequency polygons are extremely sensitive to the bin-size you select as a user. The box-and-whisker plot is only applicable when you have a bell-shaped distribution, but becomes useless in case of a multimodal distribution.

The Strip Plot is a chart type that addresses these challenges by not aggregating any of the data points, but by simply showing each point individually. This will not only show you where the (concentration of) observations are, but also where gaps are between subsequent observations.

Key features of the Strip Plot are:

Choose an object for your data points: Data points can be displayed by either a round dot, a triangle or a line;
Format the objects: Each of the data point objects can be formatted by selecting a fill and stroke color. Also the size and opacity of the objects can be set;
Multiple series: the user can display one or multiple series (distributions) by adding a Category variable;
Change the Details: The column placed in the Details field determines at which detail level the objects are displayed;
Large number of data points: The Strip Plot can display up to 30,000 data points;
Selection & Highlighting: Like in standard Power BI Charts you can make use of the Selection & Highlighting functions within the Strip Plot;
Context menu: Like in standard Power BI Charts you have access to the context menu to Include/Exclude data points;
Full tooltip support: Besides the default Tooltip behaviour (show the value of the element you hover) you can also add additional feeds to the tooltip.

All functionality of the Strip Plot is available for free to try within Power BI Desktop. A licensed version is available for production usage and sharing the reports with your colleagues in Power BI Service. Need more information? Visit our site at: https://visuals.novasilva.com

This visual is compatible with Power BI Desktop May 2020 and newer

Strip Plot

by Nova Silva