Sparkline
Also called: Micro chart, Inline trend
A sparkline is a tiny line chart with no axes or labels, drawn next to a number or inside a table cell to show its recent trend at a glance.
What a sparkline is for
A sparkline answers one question: which way is this going? It gives up exact values, axes and gridlines to fit in the space of a word. Readers get the shape of the trend (rising, falling, flat, spiky) without leaving the number they’re reading.
The last point is often marked with a dot so the eye lands on “now”.
Types of sparkline
Same 12 weeks of data, four ways to draw it. Pick the one that matches the data, not the one that looks nicest.
- Line: the default, for anything continuous like revenue, users or response time.
- Area: a line with the fill underneath. It adds visual weight, so it suits volumes.
- Column: one bar per period, for counts that reset each period (tickets per week).
- Win / loss: only up or down, for hit/miss against a target.
Reading a sparkline
Sparklines are often marked with a few reference points: the start, the current value, and the high and low. A shaded normal range behind the line shows at a glance whether “now” is unusual.
Where sparklines go on a dashboard
- Inside KPI cards, under the headline number.
- In a table column, one per row, so you can scan the trends down a list of products, regions or reps.
- Next to a metric name in a text-heavy summary.
Best practices
- Keep the time window the same across every sparkline on the page, otherwise the shapes can’t be compared.
- Don’t add axes. If readers need values, it should be a proper line chart.
- Watch the scale. Each sparkline usually has its own y-axis range, which makes small moves look big. Say so if that matters.
Mocking up sparklines
Sparklines are easy to forget in the plan and then hard to fit in later. Put them in the mockup’s KPI cards and tables from the start so the row heights and card sizes allow for them.
