Extension: Representing Data – Bubble Diagram

1. loan agent at a bank reviews loan applications that she received the
previous week. She creates a bubble plot to compare the amount of income,
savings, and credit card debt that each applicant has.
The bubble size is based on the Debt; the bubbles are labelled with the
number of credit cards each individual currently has.

Bubble Plot of Savings vs Income

Bubble siz e: Debt
35000 3

30000

25000 2

20000
Savings

1 2
15000 2
2 2
44
10000 2

5000 3 3 2
2 5
4
3 33 2
2
62
4
0 3 2 5 5

20000 30000 40000 50000 60000 70000 80000 90000

Income

Based on this bubble plot, what is the relationship between Income,

Savings and Credit Card Debt?

This graph shows the relationship between the savings, income and
amount of debt for customers who apply for a bank loan. Larger bubbles
(more debt) are clustered where savings and income are low. Smaller
bubbles (less debt) occur where income is approximately 35,000 to 70,000
regardless of savings.

The bubbles become smaller as the amount of savings gets larger. There
appears to be a stronger relationship between savings and debt when
savings is high (when most of the bubbles tend to be small) than when the
savings is low (where they become more mixed in size). This mixed pattern
indicates variation in the relationship.
Extension: Representing Data – Bubble Diagram

2. You work in a car dealership. Your customers want a convenient way to

compare the fuel economy (measured in miles per gallon, or MPG) and the
cost of each vehicle. You decide to create a bubble plot to summarize fuel
economy and cost.

The bubble size is based on the cost of the vehicle. The X-Axis is the typical
mpg achieved when driving in a city. The Y-Axis is the mpg for motorway
driving.

Bubble Plot of Motorway MPG compared to City Driving MPG

Bubble siz e: Retail ($1000)
50 Fuel
Hatc h bac k
Gas
Hatc h bac k Hybr i d
45
Motorw ay Driving MPG

40 Wagon
Sedan Sedan
Hatc h bac k
35 Sedan
Sedan
Hatc h bac k
Sedan
30
SUV SUV
Wagon
25 Min ivaSnUV

SUV
20 SUV
SUV

10 20 30 40 50
City Driving MPG

Write an interpretation for this plot

The bubble plot shows that the motorway driving and city driving mpg are
highly correlation. Cars with better city mileage also tend to have better
motorway mileage.

The red bubbles represent the hybrid vehicles, which use a combination of
electric power and gas. The blue bubbles represent vehicles that are only
powered by petrol (gas)
Extension: Representing Data – Bubble Diagram

The Hybrids appear to be especially good for city driving, with the best hybrid
getting approximately 25 mpg than the best gas vehicle. The difference is a
little less for motorway driving.

Most of the larger bubbles (more expensive vehicles) are SUV’s, which also do
not do so well with the mpg as they weigh more than the other vehicles. The
poorest hybrid from a mpg point of view is an SUV.