Bubble Chart

A bubble chart is a set of dots plotted between axes representing two variables. A third variable represents the size of the bubble.

A bubble chart is one of the most popular charts among researchers and analysts. It has a lot of flexibility in terms of variable binding. With some expansions, it can represent up to seven variables at once. At the same time, if not carefully designed, reading bubble charts can be challenging. That’s why it’s better not to overload the viewer's attention by plotting too many variables.

Binding

Up to seven variables can be bound in the bubble chart: X- and Y-axes, size, color, stroke color, icon, and label. It’s a record among Datylon charts. But be careful. Too many bound variables can easily confuse the reader. It’s better to limit the number of bound variables to three or four.

Sorting

If an axis type is set to categorical, sorting can be applied: in ascending, descending and reverse order. This can be a huge timesaver if the sorting of categories hasn’t been prepared in the spreadsheet beforehand.

Coloring

All the possibilities of coloring are available in the bubble chart. Three types of color scales allow detailed communication of both categorical and numerical data.

Data-point styling

Every bubble can be styled separately and tuned to the finest detail. This enables endless options to highlight the bubbles.

Labels instead of bubbles

Sometimes we don’t even need a bubble. A label on its own can be enough for communicating the message. This is done by hiding the data marks and leaving the labels only. The labels can be colored just like the data marks by using the link option for label color.

Jitter

If you use a combination of numerical and categorical axes and the plots on the numerical axis are dense, you might run into overlapping data marks. To avoid that you can use the Jitter property along the categorical axis. It allows you to spread data marks near the category line and make the data marks more visible.