Shutter Plot: A Visual Display of Summary Statistics over a Scatter Plot

Abstract

While a dot plot of one variable is naturally extended to a scatter plot of two variables, how should a box plot of one variable be extended to two variables? We propose a shutter plot that depicts the means and the standard deviations of both variables, the two regression lines and the coefficients of correlation and determination over a scatter plot. By showing all relevant summary statistics simultaneously, a shutter plot captures all aspects of a linear relationship, including flagging potential outliers, and helps the readers make good decisions.