how to make a boxplot in excel 2010 with outliers

Interpreting a box and whiskersĬonstruction of a box plot is based around a dataset’s quartiles, or the values that divide the dataset into equal fourths. The datasets behind both histograms generate the same box plot in the center panel. With a box plot, we miss out on the ability to observe the detailed shape of distribution, such as if there are oddities in a distribution’s modality (number of ‘humps’ or peaks) and skew. On the downside, a box plot’s simplicity also sets limitations on the density of data that it can show. It is easy to see where the main bulk of the data is, and make that comparison between different groups. They are built to provide high-level information at a glance, offering general information about a group of data’s symmetry, skew, variance, and outliers.

The box and whiskers plot provides a cleaner representation of the general trend of the data, compared to the equivalent line chart.īox plots are used to show distributions of numeric data values, especially when you want to compare them between multiple groups. Points show days with outlier download counts: there were two days in June and one day in October with low downloads compared to other days in the month. There also appears to be a slight decrease in median downloads in November and December. From this plot, we can see that downloads increased gradually from about 75 per day in January to about 95 per day in August.

The example box plot above shows daily downloads for a fictional digital app, grouped together by month. Lines extend from each box to capture the range of the remaining data, with dots placed past the line edges to indicate outliers. Box limits indicate the range of the central 50% of the data, with a central line marking the median value. A box plot (aka box and whisker plot) uses boxes and lines to depict the distributions of one or more groups of numeric data.

How to make a boxplot in excel 2010 with outliers