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14. Visuals and Their Formatting

14.10 Scatter and Bubble Charts (with Play Axis)

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Start with a problem

Shraddha asks whether stores with higher sales are also slower. She has five fictional dark stores.

Explain simply

A scatter chart plots each item at (X measure, Y measure). A bubble chart adds a third measure as bubble size. It shows the relationship between two measures across many items.

Show the data

Store Total Sales (₹) Avg delivery mins
Kothrud 650 12.0 (8, 16)
College Road 500 10.0 (9, 11)
Rajarampuri 450 7.0 (delivered only)
Gangapur 300 14.0
Baner 200 12.0

About this data: This table uses columns: Store, Total Sales (₹), Avg delivery mins. This table uses columns: Wrong result, Reason, Correction. Values shown are the lesson examples already on this page (not a new dataset).

Fictional sample data. Practice file: visuals_orders_apr_may_2026.csv (source: src/practice/).

Demonstrate

  1. Create Avg Delivery Mins = AVERAGE(Orders[Delivery Mins]) (blank delivery times are ignored).
  2. Insert Scatter chart.
  3. Values: Store. X-axis: Total Sales. Y-axis: Avg Delivery Mins.
  4. Optional: Size Total Orders to make bubbles.
  5. Format › Visual › Category label › On to name each point.

Show the result

Your result should look like this (fictional sample):

Five points; Rajarampuri sits fastest (7.0 min, ₹450); Gangapur slowest (14.0 min, ₹300). No clear "bigger = slower" pattern in this tiny sample.

Explain what happened

Store in Values tells Power BI to make one point per store. For each point it evaluates both measures in that store's filter context.

Explore further

  • Add a Play axis (Month) to animate points over time.
  • Use the Analytics pane for an average line on each axis to create quadrants.

Detailed reference for this lesson:

Shows the relationship between two measures across many items.

  • Field wells: Values (the detail level, e.g. Store Name), X-axis, Y-axis, Legend, Size (makes it a bubble chart), Play axis, Tooltips.
  • Example: Values = Store Name; X = Total Orders; Y = Avg Delivery Time (mins); Size = Total Sales; Legend = City. Stores in the top-right are busy and slow, so they need more riders. Play axis = Month animates how stores move month by month.
  • Avoid with fewer than ~8 points, or when viewers are not used to scatter charts (add an explanatory subtitle).
  • Formatting: Markers (shape, size, colour by category), X/Y-axis ranges, Category labels (show store names), Analytics: Trend line, Ratio line, Symmetry shading, X/Y-axis constant lines to create four quadrants (e.g. 10 minutes target).

Ravindra Bagale's Tip

Look, friends: forgetting to put a detail field in the scatter chart's Values well gives one dot, the grand total. Put Store or Customer in Values, measures on X and Y, and use the Play axis only when time really adds to the story. This matters for both exams and interviews.

Fix common mistakes

Wrong result Reason Correction
Only one dot Nothing in Values, so all rows are aggregated Put Store in Values
Avg includes the cancelled order as 0 Blank replaced by 0 in Power Query Keep blanks blank, or filter Status = Delivered
Reading cause from correlation Scatter shows association only Investigate with order-level data

Practise independently

Practice task

Which store has the highest sales but not the fastest delivery?

Hints
  • Compare the Sales column, then the Avg mins.
Solution

Kothrud: highest sales ₹650, average 12.0 minutes (slower than College Road and Rajarampuri).

Think like a professional

Scatter charts are good for finding outliers to act on. With five points, say so: the sample is too small to claim a trend. That honesty is valued in interviews.

Ravi Sir's Cards for this lesson

Scatter and bubble charts with play axis. Some questions need two measures at once: is a city big, rich, or both?Revision card

मराठी cards