What is the main purpose of a scatter plot in Tableau?

The main purpose of a scatter plot in Tableau is to display relationships between two numeric measures. Scatter plots excel at illustrating how one variable is affected by another, highlighting patterns, correlations, or trends within the data. Each point on the scatter plot represents an individual data point, with its position determined by the values of the two measures being compared. This visualization can help identify whether there is a positive, negative, or no correlation between the variables, and it can also reveal outliers and clusters within the data.

In contrast, other options describe different types of visualizations. A scatter plot is not used to show the distribution of a single variable, summarize categorical data, or provide forecasts of future data trends, which each have their own appropriate visualization types. For instance, histograms are used to show the distribution of a single variable, bar charts are great for summarizing categorical data, and line charts are commonly utilized for displaying trends over time, making those options less suitable in this context.