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distribution family
box-plot
Five-number summary: quartiles, median, outliers.
A compact five-number summary (min, Q1, median, Q3, max) per category. Strong when comparing distributions across groups; quick to spot skew, IQR, outliers.
When to use
Comparing distributions across 3+ categories.
When NOT to use
Audience is non-statistical (the encoding is unfamiliar).
Rhetorical roles
- distribute
- compare
Variants & related
Required primitives
- has_axis_titles
Optional primitives
- has_legend
- has_data_labels
Common anti-patterns
- unfamiliar-encoding
- missing-label
Disambiguation rules
- Box with whiskers extending out, often with dots for outliers.
- If shape includes a smooth density curve flanking the box, it is violin.