Back in 2004, Edward Tufte defined and developed the concept of a “sparkline”. Odds are good that — if you’re reading this — you’re familiar with them and how popular they’ve become.
What’s interesting is that over 20 years before sparklines came on the scene, Tufte developed a different type of data visualization that didn’t fare nearly as well. To date, in fact, I’ve only been able to find three examples of it, and even they aren’t completely in line with his vision.
It’s curious that it hasn’t become more popular, as the chart type is quite elegant and aligns with all of Tufte’s best practices for data visualization, and was created by the master of information design. Why haven’t these charts (christened “slopegraphs” by Tufte about a month ago) taken off the way sparklines did?