Introduction

The focus of this article will be on a data visualization technique that uses circle arrangements to represent individual observations. In my last article, I reviewed a method for arranging squares to data (something I call the Quad-Tile Chart) as an alternative to circle-based layouts that are more commonly seen in data visualization, but I’m shifting back to circles to expand on the Bee Swarm Plot.

We’ll look into new ways of generalizing the application of the underlying Bee Swarm Plot components to create new forms of visual layouts that bring swarm charts to another level of flexibility!

The following will present 2 new primary swarm techniques with some other fun extensions that can easily be applied to data for rapid visual exploration of numerical and categorical features. For some additional exploratory code exercises on similar data, see the Introduction section of the last article: