Density

Kernel-smoothed distribution. It sits in the Distribution group of the widget library.

When to use it#

Use a density chart to see the shape of one number field as a smooth curve: where most values sit, and whether there are two peaks or a long tail. For example, look at the size of all your card transactions to see that most are under $50 with a thin tail of large purchases. You can overlay up to three groups.

When to pick something else#

• Readers need exact counts per range? Use a Histogram.
• Comparing more than three groups? Use a Ridgeline or Violin.
• Want medians and quartiles side by side? Use a Box plot.

The data it needs#

Pick these in the Data tab of the inspector. BankSync suggests a column for each when your source has an obvious match.

Each row is drawn as it is, so shape the rows first if you need totals. See Shaping data.

Density options#

This chart has no options of its own; everything on its Style tab is the shared chart styling below.

Shared chart styling#

Every chart also has the shared styling options. These apply to this one:

• Legend: position, layout and which series show.
• Axes: titles, tick labels and number format.
• Grid, title, padding and background.
• Value labels on the marks.
• Categories and labels: top N with "Other", sort order, readable labels, the handwritten callout.
• Style: corner radius, line width, opacity and animation.
• Tooltip on hover.
• Colours: follow the dashboard palette or pick one for this chart.

Messy data#

• Blank or non-numeric values are skipped. With none left you see "No numbers to show".
• At most three curves are drawn: the two groups with the most values, plus "Other" for the rest.
• The height axis is hidden by default because raw density numbers mean little. Hover to see how many values sit nearby.
• The curve runs a little past your smallest and largest values so it tapers off, which can suggest values just outside your real range.

On a phone#

A single curve reads well at full phone width. With several groups the legend takes a row and the see-through fills overlap, which is harder to tell apart on a small screen, so keep it to one or two groups.

Related charts#

• Scatter plot: Two measures on x/y
• Histogram: Distribution of one measure
• Box plot: Quartiles with whiskers
• Violin: Density per category
• Beeswarm: Non-overlapping dot plot
• Ridgeline: Stacked distributions
• Strip plot: Each value as a tick
• Jitter plot: Scattered dots per category