How to use time in a subtle way in your graphics

Episode #5 of the Tiny Graphics Advent Calendar, published by Marius Popescu for De Amicis.

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Overnight success companies take a long time to build.

Anonymous citation

Apart from the sometimes lucky strike at the right moment at the right place, any success story takes time, and effort, and yes, some luck.

The overnight angle is always obvious and it is also surprising for your customers. Yes, surprising, because they know it’s not true. They’ve worked with you for years, they know people from your company, they saw how your products evolved.

Wink at them: It “only” took us 5 years to be an overnight success!

Finish in beauty:
Thank you for making us an overnight success!

This works because you connect with people who use your company products. They won’t only nod and smile when you tell your story, they will also turn to the next person and tell them your story themselves: Actually, I’ve known them for years. I recall when they were only 5 employees and the time when …

This is a subtle way to talk about your story and promote your longtime customers to the status of allies.

How can you use time in 10 subtle and creative ways in your graphics

1. Make the urgency for your customer the main axis
2. Show the opposite of the obvious option: not the time spent but the time gained
3. Use a time axis unit to teach your customers the right point of view: months or years, instead of days
4. use two or three timelines so that your story chart aligns with customer events
5. align your timeline with your customers’ domain events or historical events
6. Show how much time one actually needs to spend to do something you automated
7. Show how much time you work on a feature to teach the users how much time it actually takes
8. show your customers own timeline with your products and even before, inside your application, for them
9. show the time from your competition’s perspective
10. zoom in on specific parts of your timeline to tell a story, an important year, the start of a new product

PS

A few essential elements are missing from the graphic above, such as the actual numbers of the different levels of consultations. Sometimes the source studies are mentioned without giving the actual numbers (as in this case), and that’s a pity, as it can undermine the credibility of your graphics.