THE VIDEO SHELF · data visualization
violin plots should not exist
Physicist Angela Collier rants for 42 minutes about why violin plots are a poor way to show data, citing papers on violin and bean plots. It is part lecture on how to read distributions and part opinionated critique.
Why HN readers recommended it
HN links it in data-visualization threads as an entertaining case against violin plots.
This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.
Video & recommendation details
- Creator / channel
- Angela Collier
- Topic
- data visualization
- Format
- commentary
- Level
- general
- HN recommenders in dataset
- 2
- HN mentions in dataset
- 4
- Recommendation years in dataset
- 2023–2026
These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.
From the original HN conversations
Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.
I have never liked violin plots,but I am very much not in the field of data visualisation. Just a week ago I stumbled on a video titled "violin plots should not exist" which made things fall into place: [VIDEO]
bjoli on Hacker News · 2023-11
In Friends don't let friends make certain types of data visualizationsI disagree about violin plots being better. Here is a great rant (borderline lecture) from Angela Collier on why they aren’t [0] [0] [VIDEO]
j_bum on Hacker News · 2024-06
In I've stopped using box plots (2021)
Summaries, classifications and recommendation records are from the HackerTube source dataset. Read about this library and its limitations.