Box plots have never caught on the way many thought they would. It may depend on the area of application. With computers readily available on the desktop, it is easy to construct dot plots of hundreds of individual observations which let the view look at the actual data values making summaries unnecessary. Printing a box plot on top of a dot plot has the potential to give the benefits of both displays. While I've been flattered to have some authors attribute these displays to me, I find them not to be as visually appealing as the dot and box plots by themselves.
Most numerical techniques make assumptions about the data.
Often, these conditions are not satisfied and the numerical results may be misleading. Plotting the data can reveal deficiencies at the outset and suggest ways to analyze the data properly. Often a simple transformation such as a log, square root, or square can make problems disappear. Such a shape is called normal or a bell-shaped curve . One looks for ways in which the data depart from this ideal.