Better than average. How about displaying a box plot for spend?

Feedback & Ideas
1

Displaying “+£n vs avg” is cool. I like it.

Averages are good, helpful and easy to understand yet I feel they can be a little misleading.

Consider this:
You spend £10 in Starbucks and later that month you spend £100 (it’s been a really tough day in the office and you really need your coffee and cake fix!).

Your average spend for Starbucks is £55. Is that meaningful? Maybe.

What if you displayed a simple box plot?

While it might seem like way too much information to digest I have a hunch it would be really useful.

It feels like your awesome designers could work out a way to represent the data in a way that’s not too heavy going and super easy to digest.

I think it would be better than average.

What do you think?

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2

This is a great idea, thanks a lot @simon_tomes :heart_eyes:

We’ll sort something out and try it with users… I wonder how many people know how to read box plots though, they always look a bit intimidating, too “finance-ish” if you know what I mean. We’ll do our best :muscle:

3

The FT uses a slightly more accessible version of box plots -

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4

Thanks for your reply, @hugo! :+1:

Yeah, I know what you mean about it feeling a little heavy going. Perhaps there’s an opportunity to get some simple sketches in front of some users to see if they “get it”. Happy to share further thoughts and feedback if you explore this feature idea.

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