Charts

Chart rules

One visual language for every chart: what colour means, when things appear, how they move, and how a chart reads without a mouse. The pages after this one hold the charts.

The rules

01Colour means something

Blue is income or the thing measured now. Orange is expense or the comparison. Green is done, red is late. Grey is "other". Never colour for decoration.

02Quiet until asked

No tooltip, highlight or crosshair is shown until you hover, tap or arrow into a chart. Leaving clears it.

03One tooltip

Frosted card, period name on top, one row per series with a coloured dot, figures right-aligned in tabular numbers; a total under a line when parts add up.

04Axes stay faint

Axis labels in the faint grey, three even steps each side of zero, round tops (48k, not 46.8k). Zero is orange on mirrored charts.

05Motion explains

Bars grow from their baseline, lines draw themselves, rings sweep — once, when the chart scrolls into view, and again when its data changes. 0.9–1.4s, easing out. Reduced motion shows the end state.

06Hatching is texture

A fine 135° hatch on bars and soft fills, so pale bars still read as solid shapes on glass.

07Numbers add up

Every total on a chart equals the parts beside it, and the same figure is the same everywhere on the page.

08Every chart has states

Loading keeps the chart's shape; empty and error say why and what to do next.

09Readable without a mouse

Every chart can be focused and read with arrow keys, and carries a plain-language label for screen readers.

States, on a real chart

Loading keeps the chart's shape so nothing jumps; empty and error explain themselves.

Income and expense · 2026
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec

Which chart?

You want to showUse
Two flows over time (money in / out)Diverging bars
A share of a whole (≤ 6 parts)Donut
One trend over timeArea chart
This period against lastLine chart · insight card
What a total is made of, over timeStacked bars
Who or what is biggestRanking bars
From a start to an endWaterfall
Actual against a targetBullet
How far alongRing · milestones · tick bar
A score on a scaleTick gauge
One figure over a week or a few monthsGlow bars
Each period against a full scale (a normal day, a goal)Tick wave · track bars
Work across monthsGantt timeline
Activity per dayCalendar heatmap
A trend in a sentence or a table cellSparkline · spark bars