Now that we have a better understanding of the anatomy of a chart, we can start looking at time series charts in depth by explaining some of the differences between the date and time trends in charts.
Date and time trends explained
We'll begin with the example shown in the following graph, where we have a line chart with each data point represented by a single value. The first great thing about visualizing data is how easy it is to interpret the results without having all the context of how it was generated:
A best practice to emphasize in the preceding chart is the date values that are presented are in the standard and consistent format of YYYY-MM-DD. There are multiple reasons why this is important. For the producer of the chart, having a consistent data type ensures all the values are accurate for sorting and completion, which means the data visual matches the source data. Another factor to consider...
