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> There are very real use cases for box plots,

The author argues otherwise, can you give an example of a use case where box plots would be preferable to the alternatives the author suggests?


> There are very real use cases for box plots,

> The author argues otherwise

No, in the article he says he wouldn't recommend them _in most_ situations. It's a part that a lot of people here seemed to have missed whether arguing for or against box plots.

>Despite making more visual sense than box plots, I still wouldn’t recommend these design concepts or box plots in most situations because…

(Emphasis mine)

From the article:

„So, no, I can’t think of any situations when a box plot would be the truly best choice, other than those in which the audience demands box plots because that’s what they’re used to seeing. If you can think of any such situations, though, please let me know on LinkedIn or Twitter.“

„Other reviewers suggested that the conclusion should be that box plots are a useful chart type, but only for statistically savvy audiences. Again, I’m going a step further, suggesting that even those audiences would be better served by other chart types in virtually all situations.“

Comparing location, spread and skew of multiple batches.
Often people are interested in exact quantitative statistics like IQR, median, top/bottom deciles which are commonly represented in box plots. The alternatives are visually simpler but they contain less quantitative information.
If you want quantititive information it's better to use a table anyway - precisely because it doesn't mislead you about the internal distribution.
The alternative plots in TFA after

> Design concepts such as the ones below make more ‘visual sense’ than box plots:

present the exact same info in much less visually confusing ways, through the use of brightness (weight) and area. Just better box plots.

And of course you can always draw some lines for the quartiles on any kind of plot with a linear scale for the value.

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