Getting Started With Sparklines

A powerful 200-year-old form of data viz

Sparklines are part of what’s considered the “first wave of data viz,” centered around the work of Edward Tufte, who emphasized clarity, simplicity, and direct one-to-one mapping of data points through the six principles outlined in his book The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. They are as follows:

1. The representation of numbers, as physically measured on the surface of the graphic itself, should be directly proportional to the numerical quantities measured.
2. Clear, detailed, and thorough labeling beat graphical distortion and ambiguity. Write out explanations of the data on the graphic itself. Label important events in the data.
3. Show data variation, not design variation.
4. In time-series displays of money, deflated and standardized units of monetary measurement are nearly always better than nominal units.
5. The amount of information-carrying (variable) dimensions depicted should not exceed the amount of dimensions in the data.
6. Graphics must not quote data out of context.

What is a Sparkline viz?

It’s all about showing trends of multiple values over time by shrinking the viz to fit inside roughly the…